


Black Collar Academy: Hooker Bay

by AshadelMG



Series: Black Collar Academy: Rise of a New World [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Explicit Sexual Content, Incest, Multi, Plotty, Sleep Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshadelMG/pseuds/AshadelMG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katja Hoax has only been on the new world for a week, and already she's been given a seemingly impossible task. Will the half-elf succeed where others have failed, or will her inexperience lead her to fail... and leave the survivors defenseless?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The setting sun made the trees around her glow, a light breeze tossing dark hair into her face, shielding it from the humid heat that had settled in the area. One foot lazily pushed along the ground, keeping her rocking in the hammock that she had found and set up between two trees that she did not know the name of, but were so perfect for the use that she had found. The hammock was scratchy against her cheek and back, but she hardly minded. Katja had never been the delicate flower that most women had grown up into. Her life had started hard, and had only grown harder as she had learned that the enemy was not merely outside, but inside as well.

She threw an arm over her eyes as she rocked, the fingers of her other hand gently lifting the loose shirt she wore to slide over the ridged skin that marked a painful scar over her hip, ending halfway to her navel. The hammock pressed painfully on the skin, and she adjusted to tuck her shirt around the sensitive skin only to find herself swiftly being pushed out of her lounging place. Blonde hair briefly swatted her face before she was dumped unceremoniously upon the ground.

“Whoops. Didn't see you there, halfsie.” Vanessa dropped into the hammock, slinging her legs over the side. “Really shouldn't get in the way, you know. Hey, I don't suppose you know where the Commander is, hmm? I heard a rumor that his son is around.” The blonde squirmed into her stomach, her plush form pinned obscenely by the netting of the hammock. “I bet he's as good looking as him. Handsome, too.”

Katja peered up at the woman from where she lay on the ground, her full lips settled in a slight frown. “No, I don't know where he is. I do know,” she grunted as she rolled out from beneath the netting and stood, wiping off her leggings, “that there's a rumor you've already settled yourself into several beds. We've been here a week, and the hardest thing you seem to be capable of is keeping your legs together.”

“Oh, come on, halfsie.” Vanessa's plump lips twitched into their perfected pout, her tone a mockingly consoling one. “You can't possibly be jealous of little ol' me. It's not my fault these men need a real woman, and not a fantasy.”

“Vanessa, there's not an inch of you that's little.”

“Can't blame them for wanting a full woman.” Her tone had turned scathing, and then melted into slurs as Katja's slim blade cut through one of the ropes of the hammock, causing the whole thing to fall to the ground with the venomous woman trapped within.

While Vanessa screamed her rage, Katja tucked her hands into her belt and stepped close, lifting a foot and kicking the shrieking woman roughly on the arm. “It doesn't matter how many beds you fill, it doesn't matter how many men you have suck from your oversized breasts. It will never, ever change the fact that your father preferred a woman whose half-blood gave her full talents miles above the placid idiocy of your mother.” 

As the woman walked away, she never looked back, though her grin broadened at the sound of Vanessa tripping over the netting in her fury, sending her back to the ground with a bodily thump. Greater still was the soft sob that her half-blood hearing picked up even when several yards away. Katja linked her hands behind her head and wandered slowly, enjoying the gardens and few gazebos she passed by that were occupied by students in various stages of study, rest, and... extracurricular activity.

A slight grin settled on her lips as she peered into the last of the sheltered structures, spotting a young woman and her lover in the midst of a haze of sweetly scented smoke. His dark skin was striking against her own, pale ivory ensconced in delicate wraps of crimson that her lover slowly peeled from her with only his fingertips while his lips quested for the skin along her shoulder and her throat, using only the bridge of his nose to gently tip her head back. Her dark hair slid away to show her pale green eyes, and for the briefest moment Katja and the woman shared a look.

There was invitation in there, mixed in a promise that wasn't so much uttered as it was implied. Despite it, she felt no desire to join the woman who was slowly being escorted into complacency by the mouth of the attentive man. Her head tilted against his own, body pressing up as the man slid the fabric further down and over the gentle swell of her stomach. Katja smiled as the woman's eyes looked back to her lover, pressing her hand over his own as he smiled and then, with only the slightest movement, curled his arm around her to pull her into his lap.

The scene was sweet, and Katja vanished down the steps of the gazebo and out into the garden to give the lovers their peace. Around her, there were others who were not so private. She stepped around the tangled forms of three elves and nearly backed into the furious rutting of a tauren and her worgen bedmate, and at one point was even drawn into the play of a druid and her prey as vines wrapped around her waist to bring her close. She was released with laughter and easy smiles, but the close call made her eager to leave the garden and the hedonism it contained.

She found herself stopping at the combat rings, watching the drills that had started the very night that they had arrived, almost a week before. Her arms slung over the wooden railing that encircled each of the seven rings, observing as experienced fighters laid flat the youths who had only just begun to find themselves attracted to the splendor of steels and knives.

“I thought I'd find you here.” Hoax copied her posture, peering over at the girl he had come to accept as his daughter, noting the distant and distracted look. “You can join in with them, you know. No one is barred from learning, not now.”

“Are we really going to fight?” Katja glanced up at Hoax, his height making her feel almost doll-like despite the fact he was leaning to avoid just that. “There's so few of us, and I've heard about the Legion. Mother told me so much...”

Hoax sighed, running a hand through his raven hair. “Yeah, Kat. We're all going to fight, if only because we have no choice. We can't keep running from one place to the next. We can't keep giving inches, and letting them take miles. Azeroth was... Light, it was beautiful, Kat. The beaches were clean, and the water was so clear you could go out all the way to the drop-off point and still see down for a hundred feet. The forests were wild, and the skies? The skies were crisp. I can't keep watching things fall to pieces.”

“Mother having trouble sleeping?” She managed a faint grin as he looked at her, and shrugged. “It happened a lot when I was younger. She'd wake up in a cold sweat, like she'd been running through ice fields for years. If you rub her back, she'll calm down. Don't hold her to you – it doesn't go over well. But I'm guessing you already know that.”

“Thanks. But... we're fighting. Fifty years to catch up, and I'm guessing we have a few fights to catch up on as well.” His hand reached out, tucking deep chocolate hair behind her ear. “Marric took care of you and Ellie for years. How much do you trust him?”

Katja tipped her head into his touch and sighed. “With my life. He probably saved her, and he certainly saved and civilized me. I grew up way too fast, and he... sort of let me pretend to be a kid while we situated ourselves with him. I guess he was kind of my Dad for a while, without you...” she winced at the fleeting look that crossed his face. “Without you there.”

Lorcan was quiet for some time, watching her for a few moments before looking back to the fighting groups. “I was hoping you wouldn't say that.” He didn't see her look of disbelief, but she had a feeling he knew it was there anyway. “I never thought I’d end up with a kid, Kat. I was born half-blood, and when I was bitten in Gilneas? I thought that was it. Light, I thought my elven blood would negate the curse, but it didn't.

“I ended up a monster. Tried to hide it as much as I could, landed myself with an unsavory crowd, slept with lots of women. More women than I really care to admit to, honestly. Then I met that little short shit that is your mother, and things just...” He chanced a look at her, saw her expression, and grinned. “I didn't expect a kid, Kat. Your mother and I talked about them, when she was working for me. She thought she couldn't have any, either.

“You must have been one hell of a surprise, eh?” He matched her grin with his own, and ruffled her hair. “Truth is, Kat? I don't know how to handle being a father. You're a piece of me and your mother, and damned if I won't lay down my life for either of you. But your mother thinks that I... I treat you too much like just another kid. So when Marric came along and asked if we'd be alright with you going out on a mission for the Headmistress... Well, I got myself put in the doghouse.”

She laughed, stepping close to nudge his side. “You just treat me like an adult, is all. I mean, I am one...”

“Yeah, you are. Which is why I wanted to talk to you before anyone else got to you. Apparently, we need help from some of the outlying people nearby. One of them is a man named Ageron Goldleaf. We need him because of his political pull among the Council of Seven, which has nothing at all to do with the old Kirin Tor. These guys are... well, the best word for them is pirate. These men have a tendency to make goblins look like choir boys. Slaves, gold, treasure... all of it. Ageron, though? Man likes to build. He's got a hold on the air ships that they use to transport large amounts of goods across the Silent Sea, because you can't use boats.”

He waved a hand, silencing her question. “Give me a moment, alright? Now, this guy is a veritable politician. He'd have given the nobles in Stormwind a workout with only a few words. We've had trouble getting to him for simple deals, let alone trying for an alliance, but we're running out of options. If we can't get the help, this place will burn, and the next target will be all of the other races on this planet. The Legion leaves nothing behind once they get their claws into it, and we need as much as we can possibly get. Your friend Marric volunteered you and that Vanessa, and you were the one picked.

“Your mother is, of course, furious. She's never had to live without you, and she worries that you'll get yourself killed. Ageron hasn't killed anyone we've sent there, but they don't exactly come back in one piece, either.” Once more he quieted her, smiling at her look of frustration. “I think you can handle it. Ageron is rumored to have a soft spot for beautiful and intelligent women, and you've got the added spunk and fire that is clearly your mother because there's no way you got that from me. But, the choice would be yours in the end.”

She was quiet for almost as long as he had been, finally looking up to him with a worried frown. “I wouldn't know how to get there, to be honest. I've only been here a week...”

“Ah, well. You'd have company. Two people, actually. Neyila Houndstooth and her mate, Tolismir. Been together for years, they do most of the animal work here for the more foreign breeds. No one better to get you there and back. Let alone there and back safely. There are very few I trust, but Tolismir and his wife are most certainly highest on my list.” He turned, leaning his back against the gating while she mused further.

“What would I have to do? Talk to him? Bed him?” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I've never actually had to make deals with anyone except Vanessa, and those have usually been, “Yes, I'll stay away from him so he'll be courted into your bed, yadda yadda.””

He snorted, covering it with a light cough. “Convince him. He likes intelligent women. Give him information that he'd like. Be a... friend, if you must. Show him that we Azerothians can be trusted. You don't have to bed him to get him to agree to help us, just be... you. My beautiful, Light-blessed daughter.” His eyes flicked away, over her head to where the figure of Elenie could be seen nearly storming their way. “And save me from your mother, if you would.”

“So that's the real reason you scampered over here, hm?” Katja grinned, turning to face her mother, catching the smaller woman on the shoulders to hold her still. Every moment Elenie attempted to speak, Katja headed her off at the pass. “Yes, he told me about Marric's request. Yes, I understand the danger. No, I don't know either of them, but Father says he trusts them, and,” she covered Elenie's lips with her hand, softening under the frightened look she was given, “I'm an adult, Mom. This is a choice that I can make for myself. Wouldn't it be nice to have some time to bond with Father again? Without me lurking, making things awkward with my presence, you two always acting like what you do isn't already something I've seen before?”

Elenie uttered a muffled sound of pain against Katja's fingers, slipping a frail hand around her wrist to drag it down so she could speak. “I know how old you are, Kat. I've counted every moment of your life in a thousand different ways, but you're still my baby. You don't know how many times I've seen you dead in my sleep. I couldn't bear it if that really happened, you hear?”

“I know, Mum. But I want to... I want to do something. Everyone else has all these things they can do, but I'm just sitting about, wandering the gardens or looking at the fighters. This? This sounds like something I can do. If I can talk you down from throwing yourself off a cliff, I can talk this man into helping us.” Her hands gripped those of her mother, and she sighed. “I always believed you'd come out of it. No matter how bad it got in your head, you'd come out of it. I didn't know if you would, and that frightened me. Now, I'm asking you to believe in me like I do you.”

Elenie's lips pursed, and she grumbled for a long time before finally throwing her hands up and glowering at Lorcan. “She gets it from you,” she began, but soon sighed and let her shoulders slump, seeming even tinier compared to the two. “Neyila gave me a hound once, years ago. She was just a girl, but she had a pack that she'd helped raised. When we fought at Theramore, we met and she gave me one of the pups. Gorgeous little red and white hunting dog. It wasn't until later that...” She reached out a hand and squeezed Katja's shoulder. “You listen to them, you hear?”

Katja leaned close, kissing her mother's brow. “Yes, Mum.”

“Marric said he'd meet us at the stables. I suppose there's no time to be wasted when it comes to the Headmistress. I remember when she was nothing but a child...”

The red-head was nowhere to be seen as they approached the expansive stable grounds, but Katja found herself quickly pulled away by pure curiosity to observe the different species that called the grounds their home. Most she recognized from a simple glance; quick horses with slender legs, a few scruffy wolves favored by orcs, fierce raptors and shaggy goats all co-mingled without issue despite their places on the food chain. But the few that she couldn't name caught her most; the strangely ethereal, wisplike forms of horses that were there and gone within the blink of an eye, the low-walking reptilian creatures that reminded her of basilisks but far more docile, and hounds of black rock and crystal, each the size of a horse as they padded around their corral.

Hoofbeats turned her head, and she spotted the horse before the rider, purely on size. Draft horses were never meant to be small, but the one that was converging on them was a behemoth even then. Full-bodied and strong, every hoofbeat thundered beneath their feet, only becoming stronger as it approached. It drew up in front of them, breathing hard and tossing the silver mane that she was sure had never been cut. It was a beautiful beast, and Katja felt her heart stolen by it the moment her eyes met it's own.

“Well, I'll be.” The rough voice was matched with a man as he jumped from the saddle, his own silver hair pulled into a low tail. He wore no shirt, his tanned skin marred only by the healthy curls of silver chest-hair that glittered atop his body. “I didn't think it was possible, but I'd know that face anywhere.” Katja watched the man sweep towards her mother, gathering her up into his sweaty, muscular form. Only when she began to struggle was she released, his large hands resting on her shoulders.

“No... Greysin?” Her mother's face lit up as the older man nodded, and Katja was relieved to hear laughter instead of tears. “By the Light, you're old!”

“I'm human! You're older than I am, but you haven't aged a day.” His smile, already warm, grew fond as he drew her close again. “It's good to see you again, sister.” Sharp eyes caught side of Katja, and his smile grew broader. “And this must be the lovely daughter, hmm? That'd make her my niece, wouldn't it? Never thought I'd be sayin' that.” Releasing her mother, Greysin strode to look Katja over, his chin clasped between his thumb and forefinger. “Yep. I can see you in her, Ellie... but that look she's got on is all Hoax.

“You like horses, Katja?” He gestured towards the stallion at her nod, scooping her up with ease to settle her in the saddle. “Happy birthday.” 

Katja, always wary of people by her very nature, looked from the man to her mother, and then back. The stallion whickered, tossing his head and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Despite her misgivings, she realized quickly that she had never felt as safe anywhere as she did there atop the great back. “Thanks...”

“Slate's a very special breed of horse. You saw those wispy ones over there, yeah?” He jerked a thumb at the corral, where a ghostly mare heavy with child stood rubbing her head against the railing. “Comes from that stock, he does. Eidolons apparently have a throwback gene that lands you with one of these. He's got the same blink capability as his mare, runs faster than any racing horse you'll find on these grounds, can jump further than you'd think, and has the ability to walk on water. Feel safe?”

Katja nodded, leaning forward to brush her fingers through the silky mane and over the strong neck. “Beyond safe.”

Greysin nodded. “You'll start to hear him, soon. We don't have any name for what he is, but I call them Echoes. That's how they talk, and it isn't you going mad. He'll take things you've said and speak them to you, like an echo. He'll do the same with groups, too. It's a little off-putting, but he's just about the best guard you can get. Echoes are fierce fighters, especially when their riders are threatened. You've never seen a pissed off horse until you've seen a wounded Echo rider.”

He gave the stallion a loving swat on his flank, peering towards a couple approaching from around the stable. “Any other questions you might have in regards to him can be answered by those two. Who, if I'm right, will be your escorts. You're in good hands.”

Both were cloaked, the man taller than the woman by a good six inches if not a few more, his lengthy coal-dark hair nearly entirely white with age. Around his lower face was a scarf, casting a rather roguish countenance on an aged face that was scarred with old marks. His ears were lengthy, eyes a brilliant shade of green that examined her briefly before he moved past her towards the corral with the stone-wolves. His hand reached out, touching on the muzzle of the largest, and it dissolved into shards of glimmering obsidian and dust, coalescing into form outside the railing beside him.

“Shard Wolves.” The woman was standing beside her, and Katja slid down from Slate's back to take the offered hand. “They aren't exactly living. We found them up in the Glass Mountains, where a field of magic leeches away at the rock. We'd best describe them as golems, but they're pretty handy at finding precious metals and stones. We were told you hadn't come through with much, but I heard tell you were a half-blood.”

Katja bristled at the term, and Neyila's sly smirk didn't help matter much. “Easy, Kit-Kat.” The woman flicked hair away from her face, showing the neatly tipped ears that proved her own muddied blood. “You're in good hands, that much I promise. That little descriptor is pretty handy though, when you're trying to get clothes. I'm skilled with working leather, so anything that doesn't fit,” she strapped a large bag to Katja's saddle, “can be tailored to suit you better.”

“I didn't even say I was going to go.” 

There was quiet for a few moments, and Katja was sure that the entirety of the stables was looking to her as if she were insane. Neyila's expression was neutral, but her voice was gentle as she spoke. “You're going. It's you or that dunce of a blonde I've caught twice in the stables in the last twelve hours alone. I'm guessing you haven't been away from your family ever in your whole life, but now it's time to grow up. For the next... however long this takes? Toli and I are your family.”

Katja stepped back as the woman whistled, a large wolf trotting from around the stables to sniff idly at Slate's hooves before pushing up against Neyila. The woman pulled herself astride the furry back, and motioned for Katja to mount as well. “I haven't said goodbye.”

“Key piece of advice, Kat? Don't ever say goodbye.”

As the pair began to move out, Katja glanced around to spot her mother, and found her speaking with Greysin over by one of the corrals. For a moment, she longed to be a child again, running towards the safety that her mother had always been. But after begging her mother to see her as something other than a child, the longing felt stale and hollow. She settled instead for lifting her hand to wave as Slate moved after the pair of wolves, but Katja never stopped craning her neck to watch her mother until the woman left her sight completely.


	2. Chapter Two

“Ageron Goldleaf is the eldest son of the Mata Dorma, which is either a religious sect or simply a royal house among the Hylios. We've never actually gotten far enough through conversations to find out which it might be, and no one in the Bay is foolish enough to talk about it. The Hylios are fairly secretive about their most inner workings; family is precious to them, though not because children are rare. From a cursory glance, the Hylios are the odd ones out when it comes to the idea of most elven races.

“They breed quite often. Ageron is the eldest of seventeen – no, nineteen – children, the youngest of which are a set of triplets. Other siblings range from singulars to twins. Apparently, it is the singular children which are considered most special. Of the nineteen, only three are singular, and Ageron is one of them. Gender matters little in their society, so each of his brothers and sisters are held with equal regard when it comes to that. The only time this changes is when they have no gender.”

Though they had left the grounds with sunshine, the skies had quickly become dark with clouds. As the hours passed and Neyila explained the intricacies of the Bay and it's denizens, the clouds had turned darker and darker until at last they spilled a warm drizzle. The drizzle became rain that was quickly heading to a torrent that the group dodged only by taking a path into a thickly canopied forest. The rain could be heard thundering atop the broad leaves above them, with very little of the fall actually reaching the road. Neyila had explained that the road itself was enchanted for such travel, pointing out a few glowing runestones through the foliage as they rode.

Their ride was slow, and combined with the lulling sound of rain and the warmth of the cloak that had been made for her, Katja was finding herself struggling to hold on to the words of the blonde. In front of them rode the man she knew only as Tolismir, little more than a shadowed shape sitting astride his strange rock-like wolf. The stone that comprised the wolf's body cast off gentle light from the gems at it's shoulders and ankles, a pale blue-green that lit the road they traveled on but little more. Katja roused herself, her curiosity piqued. “No gender?”

Neyila ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and nodded. “Yes. A strange concept to us, perhaps. Hylios are born completely neutral. They are given the opportunity to learn and study as men and women of their society might clear through childhood. Once they have reached the age of emotional maturity, they are then taken through a rite of passage.” Katja's look of confusion made her smile. “Being completely neutral, there's no way to tell about sexual maturity. This particular race values the emotional and mental strength of their species over such things as when the body is ready to breed. The rite of passage is done when the child has come to terms with the life they will lead, and the life they will leave behind.”

“So, what does the rite entail?” Katja's knees tensed as Slate paused then stepped nimbly over a fallen branch. “How do they go from being neither, to being one? That sounds like something a goblin should be playing with.”

Neyila chuckled, and tipped her head. “We don't know. The Hylios are a... very old, but somewhat private race. I could make guesses, but I might be wildly off. I believe that a Hylios child is put through a rite where they are faced with their choices, and upon choosing one, is changed by the magic of the rite. That is something you will find odd about the Bay – magic is not prevalent there. They are very wary of it, even down to the rune magic that the Academy teaches. It is for that reason that Tolismir and I are the most frequent, and accepted, visitors; we don't deal with runes, only animals and bows and knives.”

Neyila stopped explaining to speak to Tolismir, the Thalassian spilling from her mouth with easy fluency and only lulling their companion into a further sleep. She roused again when Slate snorted and side-stepped, her quick intake of breath alerting the others to her state. “We're not far from a safe-house up in the trees. No more than another hour's ride, at most. You aren't used to staying up, are you?”

“No,” Katja murmured, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Always been that way. If I get tired, I sleep. I never thought riding would make me as tired as I feel right now.” Her body leaned forward, draping gracefully along Slate's neck, and she received a happy huff from him while her fingers stroked his soft silver coat. “Slate's the most beautiful horse I've ever been given the honor to ride, too. It's like I'm straddling a cloud.”

Her words drifted as sleep claimed her again, settling into a light doze. Neyila watched her for a few moments, then reached out to gather the reins of the Echo to help guide as the forest grew darker. Tolismir slowed until he could slip from his mount's back, the dim glow of the gems along it's stone pelt brightening for only a moment. The forest around them responded, dancing lights flickering through the leaves and trees as hundreds of thousands of fireflies set the forest into a fantasy display. 

Tolismir's cloak shifted, his hands gripping the daggers he kept concealed beneath, but nothing burst from the trees as he might have feared. Their steps quickened, with even Neyila sliding from her wolf and stringing her bow, a delicate arrow held lightly in her fingers. The animals followed, Slate's easy stride keeping Katja firmly ensconced in sleep as the forest glimmered and shone like a noble's party, the trees flickering with the light of the fireflies. Large prints in the midst of the road made them pause, Neyila's lips pursed in a frown.

“Kin,” she murmured, eyes flashing to the nearby trees, “likely bear. Could be worse, but it's not going to be easy if it's an entire coven.” A soft whistle left her, and Slate moved up against her. “Katja, girl. You need to wake up.” Her light grip became a firm shake, drawing the girl out of her slumber like a child dragged from a warm bed. “Something knocked out a couple of the runestones,” she explained, coaxing the girl better into the saddle, “you need to stay astride Slate, and if you absolutely must, use this.” A blade was offered up, nothing more than a skinning knife.

“If I'm right, they're Kin. Think of a druid that has lost all semblance of humanity except for the intelligence. Animals capable of setting traps, of using magic, of doing things that only we should be able to. Then put all the instinct of an animal there.” Her grin was forced. “They're one of the very few animals I can't reach or tame. If you must, go down the road as fast as you can. Nothing in these woods can keep up with Slate, and he'll be fastest if he thinks you're under attack. Do not stay and fight.”

Adrenaline surged through Katja as she took the knife, handling it awkwardly. She missed the blade she had lost when fleeing the town, but she wasn't keen on complaining. The quiet concern was upsetting, and she grasped the reins tighter as the hunter moved away into the trees. The silence was concerning, her breathing as loud as the heartbeat that thundered in her ears. Like Katja, Slate was still and trembling, tensed as if fit to burst into motion at any moment.

A moment that came upon them like a tidal wave as something crashed onto the path behind them. Katja saw only a flash of mottled skin before Slate skipped forward and out of the way as Tolismir vanished from his place to appear in front of the malformed beast, the glimmer of a dagger seen and then gone as it hilted in the thing's neck, blade driven up into the skull. The bellowing death cry was answered by several more, the forest around them alive with anger.

Three more appeared, one dying as swiftly as the last had, the second felled by a single arrow to the ursine ear. Neyila appeared, speaking in a language that she could not understand, but she recognized one. “Run.” Another arrow flew by her ear, Tolismir's impeccable aim sending it deep between the eyes of the last of the bearkin. The pair passed by Katja, the Dire Wolf remaining close as sense finally pushed into her mind. With a nudge, Slate burst into movement, muscles releasing like a spring.

It was the animals that took point, diving into the next obstruction with feral ferocity that made Katja's blood run cold. Ursine figures were brought down with teeth and claws, their lumbering movements no match for the wolves. A massive paw lashed out, and Katja felt searing pain burn up her arm. She screamed without meaning to, and the horse beneath her whirled as if he had taken the blow himself, his bulk slamming the bearkin against a sturdy tree. Katja had only enough time to grip some of the silver mane with a hand before the horse reared and thrust heavy hooves at the offender, reducing the stunned beast to little more than pulp against the wood.

Bile rose in her throat, but Slate was moving again without pause, his need to press down the path now made ten-fold with her injury. Her arm felt numb, and it took considerable will to not cry out as he fled down the path. He ceased only when the faint glimmer of rune stones could be seen through the trees again, but the sounds from behind them proved that the attack had not stopped. She could barely see her companions through the gloom, the fireflies not as thick now that the stones were offering their protections, but she knew pain when she heard it.

Against reason and the order she had been given, she pulled Slate around and squeezed his sides with her knees. She encountered a moment of breathlessness as the surroundings lost all color, the world becoming grey and black, mist blocking the view more than ten feet around her, and yet she had a feeling that she was moving fast. The moment was gone, and Slate reared again to crunch hooves through the head of a particularly grotesque kin, the scene in color and horrifically real.

More closed in behind, and Slate circled around to cover Neyila and Tolismir, each of which had a good amount of blood and gore on them. Neyila's Dire Wolf panted beside her, clearly wounded and finding it hard to stand, yet managing. Katja knew fear again as the bearkin closed. They could not move, and yet safety was so close. Tolismir reached out a hand, and for a moment she thought he was bidding goodbye to the jagged Shard Wolf, but Neyila's smile unsettled her.

Beneath Tolismir's touch, there was a spark of light. It cracked and split, moving along the shape of the Shard Wolf until the beast glowed brightly, and in only a few seconds, it shattered. She was reminded of the way it had seemed to dissolve and then reappear beside him outside the corral, but the calm dust that it had become then was nothing like that now. Tolismir was surrounded by glimmering shards of obsidian, each razor sharp and suspended as if in water. As he moved, so did they, matching his speed as he vanished and appeared again in the midst of the group.

It was only the unsettling calm that Neyila showed that kept her from calling out. The bearkin did not expect the move, turning slowly to face the tall man now in their midst. Katja saw him lift his blade and bring it down, and the horrible sound of ripping and tearing filled the air. Slate side-stepped as flesh and blood splattered them in gore, and she fought down bile again as the shredded corpses fell to the ground in slivers and clumps. The shards had left nothing unscathed, and the obsidian wolf reappeared on the far side of the carnage.

Katja looked away as Neyila ran forward and threw her arms around Tolismir's neck, meeting his lips in a hungry kiss that seemed to celebrate the bloodshed, which served only to unsettle her further. Without needing to be urged, Slate moved past them, and the other animals fell into step, with the couple breaking apart to follow after them. No one cast a glance back to the gore, now lit with the glow of the fireflies as they coated the carcasses to feast.

The safe-house proved to be a large tree-house twenty feet above ground, built in the branches of a tree with small leaves but thick branches and sweetly scented bark. Leaving the animals on the ground, the three helped each other up into the home to reveal that the inside was larger than it seemed from outside. It was composed of three rooms; a common area with a pair of cots and a single table with lantern atop it; a side room with a larger bed and dresser of medical supplies, and an enclosed balcony that looked out over the area that the animals were left in.

Neyila slammed the trapdoor closed, sliding the bolt into place before guiding Katja to the cot nearest to the balcony, soft words of encouragement and apology uttered as she helped the girl strip free of the leather tunic. “It's not a bad wound. They clipped you, but it might fester. Wait here.” The hunter vanished into the side room, and Katja averted her eyes as Tolismir dropped his things nearby and began to strip from his torn and grimy leathers.

She caught sight of scars along his back, some worse than others, a good number of them recent. He seemed to not notice her gaze, even when it became a full-blown stare, but Neyila rescued her by sweeping back in with a small pouch and a roll of bandages. Tolismir slipped into the room as she left, leaving the two women alone. “I'll take care of him after I've made sure you're alright. This will sting,” Neyila warned as she pressed a wet pad to Katja's arm, forcing a bitten scream from her.

“Sting!? That's like fire!” Her hand flapped at Neyila as if to shoo her away, but the woman simply laughed and wound bandages around Katja's arm, sealing the medicated pad against her skin. “It's not funny! It really, really hurts.”

“And that means there was infection, and it's now being drawn out. Keep it on, or lose your arm. I think a little burn is a small price to pay, hmm?” Her movements were deft and quick, busying herself with the care. Katja's face and hands were washed with an odd smelling liquid poured into a large wooden bowl, though Neyila handed over the cloth to let the girl finish her bathing when it came to cleaning the more intimate areas. Through it all, she made no mention of the way that Katja quivered.

“Do not leave the safe-house until we say, Katja. You disobeyed me earlier, and that could have been the last mistake you ever made. It is my responsibility to not just see you safe because it was an order, but because you are family. Your mother is a distant cousin, which makes you pack.” Neyila's fingers combed through Katja's tangled hair, and she dug in her pack to offer a comb before standing. “You may go to the balcony, and no further. If you leave this house, you will die. Am I understood?”

Katja nodded dumbly, slowly guiding the comb through her hair. They traded no more words, and Neyila vanished into the second room. Silence was all there was for a long time, but when the noises of quiet passion began to slip through the doors, Katja set the comb down and lay down, pulling the blanket over her head to stifle the near-primal noises.

A chill woke her much later, the lantern unlit and her blankets thrown off in the toss and turn of uncomfortable sleep. Her arm throbbed with a dull pain, but it no longer stung like it had been doing at first. She peeled away the bandages as she sat up, running fingers along the scratches. The table was occupied by a spare set of bandages and pad, and she took her time in preparing the medicine as she had seen Neyila do earlier. Even with a new pad and bandages applied, the sting was not nearly as bad. A robe had been set out for her as well, and she took it up and wrapped herself in it before laying back onto the cot.

Sleep would not come. Her hands hurt, her body ached as if she had run a marathon without being prepared, and the adrenaline seemed to be pumping through her still. After staring at the ceiling for several minutes, her eyes turned to the balcony, and she rolled from the cot to slip out into the fresh, if enclosed, air. Despite the branches, she had a perfect view into the glade beneath, and could see the tired forms of the animals. Neyila's wolf lay still, hardly breathing beneath a coat that was caked with blood. The obsidian wolf stood above him as if guarding, and Slate paced the glade as if agitated.

Leaving the animals in such pain seemed very unlike the hunter who had spoken so lovingly of the beasts during the trip. Katja considered waking her to ask if they couldn't just offer a little help, but something made her pause. The pain in her hands and feet, the ache in her body, matched Slate's movements. Dull, barely perceptible, only enough that she might have considered that she really just needed to get some more sleep, but the more that Slate moved, the more she was certain of it.

So she felt the relief as he stopped moving, ears flicked forward and eyes directed into the forest. Now he was waiting, and the agitation seemed to turn to anticipation. Katja leaned against the railing, and through the trees she could see a faint white glow that was broken only by the leaves of shrubs and low hanging branches. The speckled light touched on Slate as he dipped his nose into the trees, then turned and danced back to the side of the Dire Wolf.

Katja inhaled a breath as two figures shyly appeared from the trees. They were ethereally beautiful, draped in soft white robes that hung open and yet showed nothing, the cloth moving as their long white hair did; as if beneath water, every step making cloth and hair flatten and billow. She jumped as a hand touched on her shoulder, looking away only long enough to know that Neyila had joined her. The blonde leaned close, her voice quiet and breath warm.

“White Maidens. They have other names, but they're spirits. I had hoped that they would sense Rylos' pain and come, but it looks like a second has come for Slate. They are the reason I forbid you from leaving this safe-house. As gentle and benevolent as these spirits are, enjoying their antics as a human would turn you into one of them forever. As guardians of animals and the forest, however...” she gestured towards the figures as they approached the fallen wolf. 

Rylos thumped his tail weakly, a pained whine echoing up into the trees. One of the women knelt beside him and laid a hand upon his side, fingertips taking up a stronger glow. The beautiful, sculptured face turned upwards with an expression of bliss, the glow encapsulating the wolf before it dimmed. His pelt was clean, no wounds to be seen, and he gave a thankful whimper before closing his eyes and setting his head on his forepaws. The benevolent creature smiled, ran her hand through his thick fur, then stood. A hand came with her, as ethereal as her own form, but male and bearing striking similarities to the wolf.

Runic marks decorated his faintly bronzed skin like tribal brands, his tan-gold hair short and shagged, his body lean but strong. Around his neck and wrists were gilded manacles, faint chains of similar color connecting him back to his body. “Remember something, Katja. All favors on this world must be repaid.” They watched as the process was repeated on Slate, though he was as pale as the women were, made of silver and moonlight, with a well-muscled body that was not overpowering. His silver hair was long, the chains that bound him matched by a silver and pale leather harness across his chest. “In this case, the gift of life must be regiven. White Maidens are made quite weak after a healing, but they draw strength from... release. Physical, emotional, mental...”

Neyila squeezed her shoulder and excused herself, leaving Katja to watch in mute amazement as the dancing women drew the male spirits away from their bodies, bringing them closer to themselves. Slate seemed more reluctant than Rylos, who gripped his playmate beneath her rear to lift her and pull her close, his hand slowly peeling away robes to bare skin that was nothing short of perfection. His mouth found her nipple, and he mauled the sensitive flesh until he tore a cry from her that was heard to Katja as merely a whisper.

The robe was peeled away and thrown aside to vanish like smoke in a breeze, and the two toppled to the grass in a tangle of limbs. Another keening whisper touched her ears, and she blushed as she realized that the wolf had hardly wasted any time to rut his benefactor. He was quick and rough, stopping only long enough to allow the beautiful woman to move to her knees beneath him before they were joined again, his teeth digging into her shoulder.

Slate was slower, more deliberate in his motions. Though gentle, he teased his partner with light touches over her flesh and over her robe, easily rebuking her attempts to move his hands to more sensitive areas. She finally retaliated by gripping his sizable length in her hands, and the resulting stroke that she gave his intimidating cock brought Katja to her knees with unexpected pleasure. Her hands trembled, lips parted in a soundless moan as expert invisible fingers danced over her most intimate of parts, sending a thrill up her body that tangled with the fright she felt.

There was no stopping it. As she had felt his pain as a dull pounding in her limbs, she now felt his pleasure reflected onto her as if it were she beneath the expert fingers that slid down strong thighs as the nymph bent and took his length into her mouth. The sudden change of shared pleasure brought Katja the rest of the way down, her ass hitting the wood deck as her hands swept behind her to keep her from falling completely. Her robe fell open, a gentle breeze bring a mewl from her as hot skin met cold air. 

Wet tongue and searching fingers devoured and overpowered her until she was near weeping with the desire to stop the unsettling feeling as much as she wanted to feel it more. The reflected pleasure bade her to respond and she did, her body moving as if a lover was with her, but there was only the lonely open air while Slate ran his fingers through the silken strands of his evening lover, finally pulling her away from his shaft. Katja welcomed the brief interlude, her eyes barely tracking his movements and he helped the woman to lay down just in front of her companion.

The position left the ethereal women face to face, and they eagerly locked lips to muffled their moans as their lovers drove themselves into them with wild abandon. Katja pressed her fisted hand against her mouth, finally collapsing to her back with her hips rising to meet a lover that was felt but not seen. It should have hurt her, to have such pressure build within her, such strength ravage her, but she felt nothing but the bliss that the oddly shared feelings gave her. She knew, without being able to understand, that the bliss would end soon. 

The spirit women had drawn closer, grasping breasts with delicate hands while they kissed, lips parting only long enough to let a wisp of smoke pass between them, unseen to their males but spied by chance when Katja pulled herself to her feet. Even against the railing, she could feel him enter her, and her legs spread to accommodate something that was not there. She found herself weeping silently, holding onto the railing with her breathing ragged, the pressure building until she could do nothing but scream her ecstasy into the sleeve of her robe as the group below her reached their own mutual climax.

She missed the tender touches of the women as they ran their hands over the skin of their lovers before vanishing like smoke on the wind. Rylos stood first, his form fading as he neared his body, man-spirit and wolf becoming one once more. Slate waited, casting his eyes up to the tree-house, where he could only just make out the shadowed form of Katja. His hand grazed his softening length, and he heard her whimpered moan before he too returned to his vessel. Katja herself struggled to allow feeling back into her legs, her eyes glazed. She saw nothing more than faint echoes of silver and tan moving, light dimming as all returned to normal. 

Finally able to stand, the girl stumbled back towards the door that led inside, barely managing to make it to the cot, where she collapsed and found herself quickly in the arms of sleep, dreaming of silver-maned horses and a moon-skinned male that called her name.


	3. Chapter Three

The week passed without anymore incidents, and Katja told neither of her companions about the odd experience she had been through. Even looking at her horse made her confused, and there were moments she was sure that the beast felt much the same. Each day, she learned all that Neyila and Tolismir could teach her of the animals, of the woods, and even of blades and bows. These skills were quickly picked up by the woman, and both of her older companions were more than pleased with the progress. Though the journey had started with her homesick, she barely noticed the miles that stretched between her and home; her companions had filled the hole.

They never slept on the road. Each night was spent in a safe-house, though there were few placed into the trees as the first had been. Some were larger, including even a stable with food pails for the animals rather than leaving them to graze freely. Two had more than one building, while one had been little more than a pair of simple tents placed around a camp-fire that burned with bronze and gold flames. Twice, they had been forced to ride further after finding that a safe-house had become a threat, infested with thick-shelled insects that would attach to anything that lived and drain them of blood.

The rations they had brought with them lasted no longer than the first night, but they never wanted for food. Katja learned quickly of the safe herbs that were rampant in the forests; soft-petaled rosethorn used to draw out toxins from unclean water, and the briarweed that was commonly used in soaps. She learned of the berries and nuts that could be eaten or used as weapons, and she proved quite cunning at bringing down the larger game in the woods. 

Despite all this, she felt some sort of relief as the woods opened up and fresh air brought the distinctive scent of the sea towards them. The sky was bright and clear while they made their way through the woods, with the last hour taken at a faster pace, as if the animals themselves yearned for a change of scenery. Katja spurred Slate ahead of the others, a happy shout tossed back to them as the swift horse tore down the path to break into pure sunlight and fresh air. The woods became nothing around her, and she released his mane with one hand to shade her eyes, her lips parting in surprise.

The cliffs were enormous, far beyond those that she had grown up around in the cool wilds of Feralas. They curved just so, creating a sheltered cove in which had been built a city like nothing she had ever seen. On the far point to her left, an expansive home was built from the wood of the forest she had just broke free from, rich and decadent in comparison to anything she had so far seen. The city that clung to the cliff walls consisted of boardwalks and scaffolding, solid laders and stairs matched with ramps to take the people that lived there up and down the various levels.

The people were tiny, no larger than ants to her view as high up as she was, and she found herself following one or two just to see where they might go. One vanished into the walls themselves, and Katja squinted to see that there were cavern doors built into the cliff face. She followed scaffolding downwards and found docks, where ships of all types had been tied; small fishing vessels, larger pleasure rafts, and massive cargo carriers. Docks had been built up high as well, but the ships that were tied there had likely never touched the sea.

Airships had been rare when she had been young, but her mother had told her story enough of the massive ships that had been used for transport and war, even in the realm of Deepholme. She had survived on those stories of a world unbroken, but she had never believed she would ever see something like them herself. Ships were common enough given Vanessa's skills in building, but it was something else to see them in the air. The two she could see were made of a dark wood that was etched in bronze, both at least twice the size of the largest boat in the cove beneath them.

“Welcome to Devrolis Bay, Kat. Don't let the beauty of it fool you. This is a place that is as dangerous as it is wonderful, and it would make anyone who once worked in places like Goldshire and Booty Bay feel as though they'd worked in an orphanage for their entire lives.” Neyila pulled up beside her, her smile serene. “I miss that bay, though.” Her eyes went to Tolismir, who was smiling beneath the mask he wore around the lower half of his face. “It's where I started to grow up, neh?”

Tipping her head towards the floating ships, Neyila took point to lead the dumbstruck Katja around the bluffs. They did not speak, allowing her to simply take in the place that would no doubt be home for the duration of their stay. The sun was touching on the horizon by the time they were near enough to the ships to see those who worked on them, and Neyila's pace quickened to catch the attention of one who stood beside a shaft-like contraption. Tolismir moved beside her, his voice muffled only slightly by the mask itself.

“There is only one road down into the city, and it is privately owned by Ageron. Anyone who wishes to descend to the lower levels must use the lift, here. You will have to let us do a considerable amount of the talking. Common is not the native language on this world, and we've found that several words in our language are near enough to very insulting words in many of the languages you'll hear here. If we're lucky, we'll find an Ayera in the city that we can pay to help you understand what is being said. Of course, Ageron has several of his own to whet his... appetites. He may allow you the use of one during your stay.” 

He dropped from Jagest's back, and helped her down before pressing Slate's reins to her hands with a warning to keep a tight hold of the precious beast. They found Neyila deep in conversation with one of the men, gesturing more than speaking. More than once, the solid black eyes of the man raked over Katja, and she felt as if he had undressed her and deemed her unimportant each time. The conversation became more clipped, and the dark-skinned man finally shrugged and opened the metal grate that guarded the lift, gesturing them inside.

It was more than large enough to accommodate them with ease, but she wasn't blind to the way that they kept her in the middle of them, and the way that Neyila seemed as tight as a spring. She eased as they moved silently downwards, her voice low as she explained. “Tak lost his tongue in a brawl a few years back. He's quite the collector of young women, and he was hinting at wanting you as payment. I had to drop a rather thinly veiled threat to get his mind off the topic. Keep an eye out for him, hmm?”

Her lips were set in a thin line as she continued. “We came at a fairly bad time, as well. This city isn't exactly the best of places when it comes to laws, but when there is cause for celebration, it gets about a hundred times worse.” Tolismir's brow lifted, and she shrugged. “Looks like Ageron's youngest siblings have come here to go through their rite at the Island Springs. There have been parties for the last three days, and we've got another two days before they go through the rite. After that? Well, if it's anything like last time...”

“I don't remember much of last time,” came Tolismir's muffled reply, and Neyila rolled her eyes. Any further conversation was quieted as the lift came to a stop, the metal gate opening to allow them to step out into an airy grotto within the cliff. A young man with the same black eyes as Tak came forward, but he wore a warm smile that was matched by Katja's companions.

“You not expected!” His Common was rough, a native accent making the words more clipped than she was used to, but it was clear he was making the effort for the sake of them. “Tak sent word. Said new friend.” He glanced briefly to Katja and then away, but he seemed as though he would have much rather continued looking. “New friend very,” he motioned to his face, making a circle. “Eggstic.”

“Exotic. That was a good try, Nol. Katja, this is Tak's assistant. Nol, this is Katja.” Neyila stepped aside to let the two see each other fully, and Katja's cheeks flushed as the man bent into a low bow.

“Very please that I meet.” He straightened and looked to Slate, an expression like awe touching on his chiseled features. “You have very safe companion. As exotic,” he looked to Neyila briefly for confirmation before continuing, “as you.”

Slate snorted as if to agree, and Katja pushed the broad side of the horse gently as she laughed, bowing her head faintly. “Thank you, Nol. It is very nice to meet you.”

“We're going to be here for some time, Nol. I understand that there has been a considerable amount of celebration this last week. Where would you consider the best place for us to stay for our time here?” Neyila closed the metal grate behind them, and Nol pushed a lever that required all of his strong body to move. The lift vanished up the shaft while he mused.

“Most inn are crowded. Can get you good room at Mata Lor's. Have stable for animals, and large rooms with own baths. Not hear noise in bar from the rooms. Very nice.” He smiled at Katja, his white teeth striking against his dark skin. “Know how Matron like stories. Tell story, get good things. I send qruill?”

“Mata Lor, hmm? Well, we'll just have to take you up on your word. Go ahead and send the qruill. Is Ageron taking visitors? Oh, stop laughing.” She stepped past him, swatting his rear as she moved, but his rich laughter didn't stop for several more seconds. “This time we're not leaving until he listens. That is why Katja is with us.”

Nol chanced a glance to Kat, who simply shrugged. “He will listen, like all other time. Not fair to use her as bait. Good mood does not always last.” His long legs took him to a set of cages in a corner, and he pulled out a large white bird. The avian adjusted on the strong arm, taking the black stone that he offered it in one claw before taking flight and disappearing out a hidden corridor.

“We know. It'll take us some time to get to the inn, and it has been a long day. I'll come back to share more stories with you once I'm certain that we're settled in.” She took up Slate's reins and motioned for Katja to follow, and the group left Nol leaning against the lever with an expression of uncertainty on his lips.

When they left the cavern and stepped out onto the lowest dock, Katja realized that there was no way she would have been able to find her way all alone. The plankways and paths had become a veritable maze from which she would have been hard-pressed to find an exit. The water below the decks was nearly invisible, a simple glance showing little more than a reflective surface that did nothing to hide the variety of colorful fish in the water, as well as a few swift swimmers, members of the Niquani that were visiting before heading back to their home city.

Neyila left Katja to her own devices as they walked, and she took full advantage of the lengthened leash that her freedom provided. She paused at several stalls that carried beautiful jewelry made of shells and corals, whispered murmured thanks to merchants that offered her fleshy fish and steaming buns, and watched a lovely bird of brilliant red plumage court a pale blue female hen in a silver cage. Tolismir was careful not to let her get too far apart, and she allowed herself to be gently led back to the animals until he felt more comfortable multiple times, only to be drawn away by something new.

His presence kept her safe. She was not blind to the looks that she was getting. Curiosity from most, but the darker glimpses of fascination more than once from the ugly, the beautiful, and the profane. None dared to get near enough to her, not with Tolismir's quiet guard so very active over her person, but she noted the ones that made her feel uneasy and filed them away in the depths of her mind. The races that made up the city were as varied as anything she had seen, even briefly, at the Academy. She recognized a humanoid bull that reminded her of a tauren, and more than one creature that might have passed as a worgen, but all the others were foreign with very few parallels to be drawn between this realm and the old world.

Tolismir's grasp on her elbow steered her into a brightly lit cavern, where Neyila was already speaking with a male that closely resembled Tak and Nol, though his hair was tightly braided against his scalp in thin rows. At a wave of the hunter's hand, Tolismir showed Katja to the stables built into the rock, made up of twenty stalls, each large enough to fit at least three horses of Slate's size. The stone had been carefully carved with such skill that it resembled wood, and the stall doors were surprisingly light and easy to open and close. 

After showing Katja how to lock the stall by placing her hand in the middle of a relief carved into the stone of the door, he offered her the satchel she had used their entire journey there, leaving her to stare at the dimly glowing handprint that had remained when she drew her hand away from the stone. Slate peered over the door, his breath ruffling her hair, and she smiled and gave his muzzle a pat before following her companions into the door that now hung open.

Inside was dark and warm, just enough light used to show the outline of wooden stairs leading upwards. Directly across from them was an arch with beaded curtains, but Neyila shook her head when Katja gestured to them. Instead, they made their way to the next floor, and then up two more stairways before finally stopping. There had been noise on the first level, but by now it was a distant memory, only their footsteps providing any sound as Neyila motioned to one of the two doors on the left of the hall.

“You've been given your own room, Kat. We'll be right across from you. Seems we're expected by more than just Omani.” Her frown was made with tight lips as Tolismir passed her into the room they would share. “Can't say I like it very much. I know I should be happy about such a thing, given how much of a pain Goldleaf can be, but it feels wrong. Don't let your guard down too far, hmm? These are the best rooms you'll find in this entire city short of the manse. Toli and I have only ever stayed on the first floor. Go ahead and get some rest. I'll come and get you for supper in a few hours.”

Before she could ask more, Neyila was closing the door behind her. Glancing up and down the hall, Katja sighed and turned to her own, opening the door and slipping in as if expecting to be hit over the head with something hard. When nothing that might have threatened her came, she closed the door quietly behind her and set the satchel she carried down on the floor. The room was well-lit and made her heart ache with the reminders of home. A thick carpet beneath two large armchairs set before a fireplace that burned with an unfamiliar sweet wood, a simple table placed between them. Paintings were hung on the walls, done with a skilled hand but holding nothing more than vaguely familiar landscapes. She saw a bookcase that held only a few leather bound books, and a small case that displayed a beautiful saber-like sword, but it was otherwise sparsely decorated.

Yet, she was sure that if she closed her eyes, she could see her mother laying against her father, chasing memories through the night and dreaming of a future that both had thought robbed from them. The thought made her both happy and mournful, knowing that the future they were now planning had very little to do with her. It was an empty, strange feeling that took hold of her. It shouldn't have mattered. It shouldn't have hurt. But it did on both counts, and she could do nothing more than let it simmer and twist her until she felt herself choking on tears.

Banishing the images with greater will than what she thought she had within, she turned and explored her way into a second room that proved to be the bedroom. The bed was a large four poster with soft white sheets that were cool to the touch. The pillows were fluffy, the blanket rolled at the end of the bed a pretty royal purple that matched the décor of the room. Color was dominant in black and purple, even to the paintings that were on the wall. A small table beside the bed held a glass orb that glowed just enough to fill the room with comfortable light. 

Another door led her into the bathroom, a grand affair with a recessed bath in the center of the floor. The sink was made of stone, and a quick glance showed the drain that marked the shower that was little more than a slab of gray- and white-flecked stone beneath a broad shower head. A woven reed basket held fluffy towels, and another set beside it had scented soaps and oils set carefully within, each of which Katja spent time opening and sniffing. Some were barely perceptible, while a few turned her stomach and made her light-headed with how strong the scents were.

She stopped as she heard the door close, her head tilting as someone light stepped through the room. Lighter even than Tolismir, who had been prone to appearing and vanishing without warning with how quietly he moved. Her eyes went to the door that divided the bathroom from the bedroom, blinking as the mysterious intruder appeared with a silver jug in her hands. The woman stopped, peering quietly at Katja, who could find no words to say. Each clearly expected the other to start, and as the silence grew, Katja finally choked out a greeting that seemed like it would have gone ignored.

“I apologize. I was not told that you would be here so soon.” Her voice was steady and warm, sliding like silk over Katja's ears. Remarkably, she was perfectly understandable, something that she hadn't expected given Tolismir's warning about the language barriers. Her eyes never left the woman who moved into the bathroom, setting the jug on the sink before coming to seat herself a respectable distance from Katja, her legs tucked beneath her and hands folded with fingertips touching in her lap. “I am Ayera Jassine. It is my duty to serve you as long as you require me to. I would request your name.”

Katja tore her eyes from the vibrant red hair that fell full and thick in curls over the woman's pale, freckled shoulders and down her back. She wore a dress of thin white linen, so thin that she could see the full breasts and hard nipples that pressed against the fabric wound tight around her torso. Her thighs were bare, the fabric becoming panels that covered her supple rear and front, but Katja could see no sign of undergarments beneath. The faint curl of red pubic hair was hidden only by distance from the fabric itself, and nothing more. “Kat – Katja.”

“Cat Catya?” The woman blinked slowly, not in confusion but as if unimpressed and certainly uncaring of how the one she tried to speak to seemed to be incapable of more than simply gaping. Her fingers reached out, tapping Katja beneath the chin, showing no emotion as her jaw snapped shut.

“No. Sorry. Katja. My name is Katja Hoax.” Her brows furrowed, and she moved onto her knees to look at the other woman. “How are you speaking to me? I was told there were few that know our language, but you're speaking it as if you were born to it.”

“I was. Why is your name a lie?”

Katja's head tilted as she pondered the question, finally breaking into a smile. “It's my father's name. Your last name is Jassine, is it not? It's like that. It might mean lie, but it's... not. What do you mean you were born to it?”

“No, my name is Jassine. My family is Ayera. We are all Ayera, but Jassine is the name I was given to distinguish me from my brothers and sisters.” Her head tilted to mimic Katja's, green eyes observing her. “Ayera Sonestri resides at your “academy.” We heard her within the Lattice, and what she has learned, we are knowledgeable of and have learned. Your language is very simple compared to others.” At Katja's look of confusion, she continued. “Ayera learn as a community. What one learns, so do any Ayera not yet released from the Lattice into this world. What I learn is given thus to the next of us who will descend.”

“Like... a hive mind?” Katja shifted on her knees, seeking comfort that was not coming easily.

Jassine nodded slowly, her hand lifting to tilt back and forth. “Of a sort, yes. That is how it has been described, and it is easiest for your kind to understand. Before I continue further, I must request that I assist you in becoming more comfortable. You are clearly covered in the dirt from travel and show weariness from sleeping outside. If you will indulge my need to complete my order, I will continue to answer any questions or requests that you might have.”

The mention of the dirt and weariness only made her more conscious of them, and she sucked at her bottom lip before nodding and moving to stand. Jassine rose gracefully alongside her, helping her steady herself as feeling rushed back into her legs. Her breath came in quick through her teeth as Jassine easily undid knots and ties on her clothes, slipping the dirty leather off of her despite soft objections.

“I will be punished severely if I do not serve you as I have been ordered. It is best for us both if you allow me to do as I have been told. I can promise you,” Jassine's smile was calm and sweet, “that I mean no harm to you. Ayera may do no harm, or we are returned to the Lattice and our knowledge is cut from the others.” She turned and set the dirty leather onto the counter, and motioned for Katja to remove the simple underclothes herself.

She took them as Katja handed them over and stood awkwardly in front of the woman, like a child before her peers. Jassine's movements were slow, placing the clothes aside to step near. The soft pads of her fingers touched over shoulders and down arms, tracing over sliver-thin scratches that had long since healed and left only the smallest of markings on her skin. “Your world is as bitter as those of your kind have claimed for many years. But you are new to this world. You bear fear, and are haunted by pain.

“You will not find solace here on this world that you have come from. What you are running from has been known to the Lattice for countless years. For longer than your world has known them. The Ayera weep for you, and wish that we could help.” Jassine's fingers lifted Katja's arm, touching lightly on the harshly twisted scar over her hip. “There will be more added to this one, and not all of them will be seen. The Lattice knows of you, now. The Lattice never forgets.” Her tone changed, left the quiet and foreboding words to change to warm smiles as she assisted the woman into the bath.

They passed the time learning of each other. Katja told her of her mother and father, of the people she had lived with and of the sorrow that had touched them all. She told her of Slate, and of Neyila and Tolismir while Jassine worked soap through her hair, and told her of the odd scene that had happened below them in the glade that night not so long ago. Her reason for being in the city even left her, pulled from her beneath Jassine's understanding presence. She expressed the fear she held, told of the possibility of failure, and of her wish not to disgrace her family.

Jassine told her of the Lattice, and explained that the creatures who originated in the Lattice were not born as mortals were, but instead were sent. She explained that she herself woke not far from the Bay, only to be found and brought into one of the lesser inns before she was purchased by Omani. Her purpose was still unknown, and she spoke plainly that she had little time left to understand it. From there, Katja learned that the Ayera were a very short-lived race, but they did not die. They merely returned to the Lattice, though none were certain what became of them after that.

Every Ayera descended with a purpose. For some, they were placed and found by those who needed them most; old men in need of comfort before the bitter end, young children in need of caretakers, teachers to the bitter and afraid. Others found their purpose elsewhere, generally as servants loyal to one of the many houses of nobility that lived among the various races on the world. No matter what, no matter how they chose to fight that destiny, the end was always the same. They simply ceased to be.

Wisdom was traded for knowledge, and Katja found it impossible to lie or hide anything from the woman when asked. Jassine seemed to expect such a thing, and willingly offered information in turn. They passed the time like this, with only a brief break in her tending when she handed a soft cloth to Katja to let her tend to caring for her more intimate areas. When she was finished, Jassine helped her from the bath and wrapped her in a cream-colored towel, sitting her on a stool in front of the sink and mirror.

“It would be best for you to take some hours and rest. This place can quickly sweep a newcomer out into the throes of passion, drugs, and murder. Your mind will be better suited to handle what you might be presented with if you have time to rest. It will also allow me to find proper clothing for you to not only wear here, but later when you stand before Ageron.” Jassine deftly braided Katja's dark hair, binding it in a bun atop her head before pulling a thin net-cap over the hair to keep it in place. 

She could find no complaint to utter, and so she stood and followed the woman as she left the bathroom and folded down the linens on the bed. Katja felt like a child as Jassine helped her into the large and soft bed, and despite her desire to keep talking and know more of what the Ayera might be willing to share, soon found herself pulled into the wanting arms of sleep.

It was hunger that woke her, strong and gnawing at her as if she hadn't eaten in several days. Rolling from the bed, she gathered a sheet around her and stepped into the common room, where Jassine stood with several colored articles of clothing. The redhead smiled at Katja as she approached, holding up a pale blue linen strip of cloth. “Your companions went downstairs. I told them I would take you to them once I was finished assisting you with your new clothes. Have you worn traditional garments before?”

“Not really. There isn't much tradition outside of a wedding, and I've never made it that far. Come to think of it, I don't believe that there were many weddings.” Katja's lips screwed up into a frown, and she shrugged.

“Understandable. The Hylios are very much a race built on traditions. You wish to learn?” She gestured to the various clothes of differing color, and at Katja's nod, smiled again. “I will begin with the easy ones. To wear white among the Hylios is to announce that you are free to be taken by anyone who wishes to use you. You have no true voice of your own, but to don the white is a willing choice. It is a method of giving permission. For those who are already owned, they wear the sash bearing the mark of their flinar, or owner.”

“You wear white.”

“I do. Because I have not found what my purpose is, I have been relegated to serving others who have lost their way as well. It is not a bad way to live, nor is it uncommon for an Ayera. We live to serve, and so we do. You will find that many Ayera wear white, as we are the perfect sexual partners. We cannot carry children, we are immune to all known diseases, and we carry the knowledge from every previous Ayera. Ageron is very fond of his Ayera women. Too fond, some would say.”

She held up a series of scarves in shades of grey and black. “On your world, black is a color of mourning. Here, it is a telling sign that depends largely on where it is worn. To wear an entire garment of black tells the surroundings that you are the mate of one who is currently at war. If the wife is at war, the markings upon the cloth will be of silver. If it is the husband, then gold. This is only for those who have undergone proper ceremony. A woman with children at war will have black sleeves, a man will wear a black tunic.

“The shades have different meanings. To wear dark tones expresses a bond to another, to wear light colors expresses a sense of freedom, but restraint. You must be careful, though. In this city, there are some who will confuse the very pale colors,” she plucked up a silk scarf of eggshell, “for those of white. In our law system, that can be enough to have them be free of what they have done to you.”

Katja nodded slowly. “So, wearing white I am a whore who is good for anything at any time. Wearing black, I am properly married and likely with children?”

Jassine's lips curled in a smile. “If you are mated to a Hylios man, you will not be likely with children. There is a reason that the Ayera are the favored concubines of the Hylios. They are... extremely fertile, both male and female. Several hundred of thousands of years ago, the predecessors of the Hylios were part of a war that very nearly rent the world in two and rendered them nearly extinct. It is said that they begged for aid from their gods, and one responded.

“Children were born. The women birthed strong children, two or three at a time. The race began to thrive again, and hope lifted them once more. But the god that had answered them never answered again, and the 'blessing' has become something that they are very careful with. Hylios men will only take one woman, because the union can spawn many children over their long years. If you share a bed with a Hylios male, young Katja, you will have only to wait for the first pangs of motherhood to hit you. It is exceedingly rare for no children to come of such a coupling. The Lattice knows of only one.”

Katja puffed her flushed cheeks out, tilting her head up as Jassine held colored cloth up to her chest. “I can't imagine having so many children. The cost of it, the lack of time... my mother only had me, though I'm sure she's well on her way to getting another from my father after all their time away.”

“The Hylios can't imagine not having that many. Over the years, it has become normal and natural. Some say that their blessing is slowly passing, as singular children are beginning to show up instead of the traditional doubles and triples. These singular children are given a higher status among the families. There are a great many traditions you should become aware of. I will help you all I can.

“Have you laid with a man?” Her laugh was easy as she watched Katja's head shake and her cheeks flush. “Alright. These are a little darker than I would like to have you in, but for the night they will do fine. It is more important that we ward you from the men here, than worry about what might be thought if someone from the manse was to see you. I took liberties with your old boots, I do hope that these will suit you better. Please, sit.”

Katja seated herself in one of the armchairs, her lips quirked in a faint frown as Jassine dropped to her knees in front of her and slowly slid soft stockings of a dark blue over her feet and up over her knees, halfway up her thighs. Her fingers curled over the edges, marveling at the odd feeling of the cloth; it felt like fabric, but moved as if made of liquid, clinging to her skin and remaining unmoving unless she moved it herself. She expected the boots to be stiff, as new ones were, but they molded to her feet as the leather was guided up, fitting perfectly. There were no ties, only a series of thin buckles of silver running up the back of the knee-highs.

She was helped to her feet, and she teetered a bit, unused to the heels. Jassine murmured apologies, explaining that they had been the last pair in that color, and she had no time to look around. While the Ayera opened another bag, Katja tested out her walking capabilities, soon finding that it helped to add just a little more sway to her usually rigid hips. Upon returning to Jassine, she was given a slip that molded to her slender body, colored a pale blue. The slip accentuated her breasts, a fact that she had a harder time of coming to terms with than she had the heels.

After donning the comfortable panties, she let the Ayera pull a tight fitting sheath dress over her head and tug it down. The hem fell only far enough to keep her decent, and nothing more. A good four inches of skin remained bare, but with a little shifting, Jassine revealed that the slip added another inch of decorative lace along the bottom, and assured her that the cloth would not move unless she willed it. The pale and dark blue combined created a pleasing difference, and though Katja was not the type to enjoy anything so slinky and tight, she found that she appreciated the momentary thoughts of beauty. Over this, another layer was added. A filmy two-paneled tunic dress not unlike Jassine's but in an iridescent pale blue, stitched with silver stars was settled as an overdress. 

“This is usually an optional bit of clothing, but the celebrations that we are having almost beg for it. Dark colors suit you well. Perhaps a wedding would do you justice.” Jassine smiled and pulled her towards the mirror, easily undoing the netting and braid that still held firm within Katja's hair. “Tonight, we will leave your hair down. It will provide an air of mystery, and you are truly quite lovely. Smile, pretty Katja. It is your best accessory. You are ready to join your friends downstairs. They are in a corner booth, the one without a dancer. Whatever you do, do not accept an offer of any of the specials.”

“You aren't coming with me?” 

“I cannot. I wear white, and thus I would be more of a hindrance to you than a boon, I'm afraid. It's harder to explain things when you're being bent over a table or chair.” Jassine's smile faltered for only a moment, and she sighed. “I'm sorry.”

Katja pursed her lips, then grasped the Ayera's hand. “Nuh uh. You told me that you were here to serve me, and that not doing so would mean pain, yes?” She squeezed the delicate fingers. “I'm demanding, between you and me, that you come with me. I can... keep people from you. Somehow.” Slowly, she tugged the woman towards the door, hunger gnawing more firmly at her stomach. 

Jassine resisted for only half a moment, then went with her, a laugh escaping. “Alright. But you must listen to me, Katja. I will help you, but you may not like the ways you will have to defend me. We will see, though. We will see.”


	4. Chapter Four

She wasn't sure what to expect as she made her way down the stairs. Brief recollections of the sea-side bar and tavern in what had been her home for at least a few years flooded her mind. The salty scent of the sea, and the sweat from the men who worked there. The awful smell of the beers and ales, most of which had been made right there in the town. The racks of antlers and the stuffed grizzly that the thoroughly drunken men often used to scare the poor serving girls. She expected it to be a place where she could hear a story or a song, where she could trounce the men in games of strength and agility, and where she could laugh with the women.

She expected all these things, and yet they were nothing to the reality of what she found as she stepped through the beaded curtain was anything but. The room was nothing short of enormous, and filled with figures of various races. The sudden shock made her pause, and she was gently moved out of the way by Jassine as a brine-scented, scaled man attempted to pass through the arch himself. The walls were made of stone, booths of dark wood and plush red fabric built into each little alcove. Tables were centered in each alcove, and she noted that some featured a metal pole that was drilled into the center of the table and connected to the rock above.

Several of these booths were filled with groups of people, and those tables that bore the pole quickly revealed their purpose as she spotted slender and curvy females that danced and writhed against them for the amusement of those that watched. Jassine's gentle prod in the small of her back spurred her forward, and she squeezed the Ayera's hand as they moved into the crowds, easily slipping around wooden tables that were large enough to hold a single person, and several did.

Katja's steps faltered as she watched a surprisingly short man lift a jug of something that smelled vaguely of peaches, and pour it between the breasts of a dark-skinned woman who wore nothing but a silver sash around her waist. Those who surrounded the table reached out, following the viscous fluid as it fell over curves and swells. She was soon painted in designs of creamy orange, each vanishing as the men and women around the table leaned forward and lapped the edible off of her squirming body.

At a booth, a well-endowed male dancer was completely nude, crouched with his back against the pole while his female audience touched his skin and slid over the corded muscles. One of the five held his cock in hand, and was slowly stroking it into the mouth of a friend, who quickly engulfed his crown in her lips as he came, his single thrust of his hips pushing him easily into her throat. The women cheered, and Katja scurried past with her eyes on the floor until reaching a break in the crowd.

“Over there,” Jassine murmured into her ear, pointing to a corner where she could see the pair who had accompanied her this far in quiet conversation, both seemingly oblivious to the antics around them. “The tables between us and them are filled with the typical. Here.” The Ayera took Katja's arm and wound it around her, forcing the half-elf to adjust her stance. “Keep your arm around me, and direct me. Don't be afraid to strike if you or I get grabbed.” Jassine settled her hands in front of her, her demeanor almost pure. 

Swallowing down her uncertainty, Katja gripped Jassine's hip and strode through the crowd, leaning just so on the other woman to help keep her pace with the unfamiliar shoes. Though sure that the Ayera could feel her trembling, she did little more than follow Katja's guidance past the tables, pausing only when Katja instinctively whipped a hand out to grab a straying hand, digging slight nails into yielding skin until the offender decided his attempt was better made to a more willing partner.

The booth was a sanctuary, and Katja allowed Jassine to slide in beside Neyila before she took her own place beside her. Brief introductions were given, with Tolismir and Neyila explaining that their Ayera had requested that she be allowed to rest in their room after helping them get ready. The two wore similar colors; a deep green that was nearly black, with Neyila in pale yellow underlinen. Neyila wore wrapped sandals instead of boots, but her outfit was otherwise similar to Katja's. 

“It's particularly more rough tonight. Has it been this way since the celebrations started?” Neyila settled a hand in Tolismir's lap, tipping her head against his shoulder. Without his mask, it was easy to see the flicker of a smile on his lips as he wound his arm around her shoulders and gave her a lingering squeeze.

Jassine nodded, gesturing out over the bar. “The other inns and taverns are filled to near full capacity. It is rare that this place is so filled given it's size, but the Rite is something precious for the Hylios, so I'm truly not surprised to see so many different races here at this time.” Her head tilted. “There are some very rare ones here, though. Harpies are not common to this area, nor any region near us. They live across the Silent Sea.”

Katja followed her gaze and spotted two tall figures at the bar in the center of the room, their feathered wings tucked tight against their black bodies. Their forms were humanoid and female until the knees, which instead resembled the rough legs and talons of giant birds. Their talons were held carefully so as not to scratch the floor when they moved, and their faces bore the defining features of warriors and not the soft curves of the innocent. They wore armor as black as they were, but no weapons could be seen.

“They are mercenaries who work for mates. An odd way to work, but when a campaign is finished, they are offered the prime warriors as stock to help replenish their own losses. An honorable race. If you cannot find help with the Hylios, you may instead find it with them.” 

Their view of the slender harpies was obstructed as a large woman stepped up to their table with far more grace than Katja would have thought. A simple glance made the half-elf think instantly of a cow, a term she instantly felt shame for until she felt Jassine's gentle grasp on her knee, and a slightly knowing smile was traded. She felt more at ease as she looked over the woman, who seemed to be perfectly used to the attention. Her breasts, each larger than her head, were propped on a tray that looked to be exactly for the purpose of holding the massive orbs. Her nipples stood proudly peaked, a thin dribble of creamy white leaking from the tips of both to slip down the amply curved breast it capped.

The rest of her was no less thick. Her body was soft, certainly not helping the image of a bovine in Katja's mind. A thin tail tufted with long fur twitched behind her enthusiastically. Her head was crowned with sunshine blonde hair, soft ears twitching from beneath the golden curls. Pale horns broke from the hair and swept backwards along the side of her skull. She was tempted to touch the ears, but kept her hands in her lap instead.

“Eela!” The woman bounced on her very human feet, the only bit of her that didn't remind Katja of a cow, and leaned forward to wiggle her ample rump, tail thrashing. Katja noticed that her pale skin was patched with splotches of even paler peach, but it was hard to see much beyond the smoosh of her breasts against the tray she held them upon. “Toli! Good to see.” Her pretty blue eyes looked around the table, and then she pouted. “No Grey of Sin?”

Neyila smiled. “No, Pani. Greysin had some business to attend to back at the Academy and could not come. You know how he is, I'm sure he'll come around to see you and the others very soon.” 

Pani fluttered thick lashes, looking sad as she chewed her words and responded as slowly as Neyila did, as if the slow speech was how she thought they should talk. “Could Pani ask favor?” At Neyila's nod, she continued speaking in the broken Common. “Pani and Grey of Sin... spend nights together. Sometimes with other girls, sometimes just me. None else do that, so Pani know.”

“You know what, Pani?” Neyila leaned over, taking one of the woman's hands. The table was very quiet, and it was Jassine that found the words that Pani struggled to say.

“I am going to assume that Pani has found herself carrying a child. This friend of yours is the father, she believes.” The Ayera touched the shoulder of the woman, and the blonde released a sob that carried the hint of of a moo. “The milk that Pani produces can be damaging to a child, and so it will be taken from her at birth and she will never see it again. If Pani was not property, she could find a way to keep the child with her in the case of a wet nurse or nanny, but she is not free. Enchantli's are even lower than Ayera. Even lower than most servants and slaves.”

Any joy that Katja had felt was washed away by sorrow and anger as Jassine spoke to the woman in a language that was lulling, but not at all like how a cow might communicate. She shoved the thought from her mind, realizing bitterly that her very thoughts of a cow were likely why the woman was treated as little more than an animal. After a few minutes of gentle words, Jassine spoke again so the others would understand. 

“Pani knows how to speak very little of your language. She says that Greysin is very kind and teaches her, treats her like a normal woman, and encourages her to be playful during more intimate activities. But he has not taught her to write, nor does she know how to do so even in her own language. She wishes to ask if you would write a letter for her to Greysin, and tell him of this event.” The Ayera looked to Pani, whose ears were drooped. Katja felt as though she must be trying very hard not to cry. “It is her hope that he would claim the child as his, and raise them so that she might be able to experience being a mother when she has worked off her debts and is free. A task that could take several more decades.”

Neyila's expression was unreadable, and her words were measured when she finally spoke. “Pani, I will gladly send the letter. But I cannot promise that he will come, or that he will claim any child as his own. He is a good man, but please do not get your hopes up too high.” 

The words were relayed simply for speed, and Pani's demeanor changed nearly instantly. The sadness was there still, the fear still in place, but Katja could see relief as well, and the sudden change was infectious. The pretty face became beautiful with joy, the happy squirm back in the pudgy body. “Many thank, Eela. Same meals as always. Even for new friends?” The blonde settled her eyes on Katja and smiled, and Kat had no choice nor inclination to do anything but return it.

“This is Greysin's niece. The daughter of his sister,” she amended at Pani's look of confusion. “She'll be meeting with Ageron after the celebrations are complete. I don't suppose you know if he's in the mood to speak to outsiders?”

Pani blinked, speaking quickly in her own language. Jassine translated smoothly. “She says that he refuses to see visitors unless they are cleared by his tanegu. She also says that Chilanu happens to be in the private suite, and has been drinking considerably. It might be a good idea to try to reason with her now. Pani is offering to bring you food, and ask Chilanu if she would be willing to speak to you.”

“That would be lovely, Pani. Thank you.”

The Enchantli nodded and danced away towards the bar, and Neyila settled against Tolismir's side. “I did tell Greysin to be good when he came here, didn't I? Figures he wouldn't listen to me. I'd expect nothing less from someone taught by Ashadel.” Her temper obviously rising, she was easily calmed by the gentle squeeze of the larger male beside her. Though her frown never particularly left, she was otherwise pleasant company for the rest of their wait, and even during their meal, where she teased Katja mercilessly for allowing Jassine to feed her.

Pani returned to take their plates, exchanging words with Jassine before sauntering away, her tail swatting the roaming hand of the same man who had attempted to grab Katja earlier. “She said that Chilanu will see us, and we can go into the back at any time. They're expecting us, but... we're to be very careful. Chilanu isn't violent when she drinks, but she does have... odd methods of making deals. I can go with you to translate, if you wish. Her speech is very thick, and drink only makes it worse -”

“You'll be going,” Katja squeezed the Ayera's hand and turned her eyes to Neyila and Tolismir. “I'm the one who has to do this, so I want it to be as much on my terms as possible. I want Jassine to be there. At least then I can understand faster than having you translate for me, and I don't feel so helpless. I'm supposed to be asking for his help, not begging it.”

“He'll want you begging for it,” Neyila pointed out, but sighed anyway as Pani returned to lead them away. One by one, the girls stood, and Katja's arm wrapped around Jassine's waist without needing any encouragement. They followed the Enchantli around tables and through a set of polished wood doors, cool air hitting them as they were opened and the four were shuffled in to a room that was even more opulent than the one they had just left.

The walls, though still containing alcoves with booths, were paneled in mirrors that allowed views of the few dancers on the tables, every angle and every curve displayed for maximum benefit. The tables were mirror-topped as well, and every alcove had sheer curtains that could be drawn for privacy. Low-lit lamps let the shadows dance upon these drawn curtains, tempting outsiders with the antics that were being played out within. Several wooden tables were set in the middle of the room, more than a few of them with a wooden bench pulled up beside them.

Pani gestured to a booth in the back where only two figures sat, and then left. Jassine nodded to the three, slipped from Katja's grasp, and made her way to the table. With no other choice, the three followed along quietly, approaching as Jassine introduced each of them in the Hylios language. It was a harsh language, strange on Jassine's lovely voice, but somehow suited to the two who watched the group with very critical eyes.

The woman spoke, fine fingers gesturing to Katja with silver-white brows lifted as if in question. When Jassine responded, the woman laughed and shook her head, leaning forward on the table with fingers knitted below her chin. Their conversation continued as if none of the off-worlders were present, and every minute that passed only made Katja's heart pound harder. Though the female, whom she believed to be Chilanu, did a great deal of the speaking and only with Jassine, the male did nothing more than quietly watch Katja herself.

She strove to ignore him, but as time passed, she could not help but look at him as he did her. The Hylios were strong, that much she could tell with just a quick glance along his torso. Unclothed, he was defined well, with broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist. His arms, slung back along the booth as he reclined, were thick with corded muscle, and the only word she could think of to describe him was: chiseled. There was a hardness to him, though he lounged so easily, that was matched by the woman who spoke so animatedly with the Ayera.

His hair was dark, streaked with sun-lit highlights, and cut short and messy. Stubble was present on his jaw, and she saw a thin scar that trailed below one eye along the cheekbone and down into his scruff. His skin was tanned evenly, and there were markings along his sides and arms, dizzying curls and lines in a gold that shimmered against his skin, but it was his eyes that caught her. Dark, and filled with something that bordered almost on hunger. She felt as though she had to physically pull herself from that gaze, and pay attention to the conversation that was coming to a close.

Chilanu looked from Jassine to Katja, and her lips pursed. Slowly, she leaned back and assumed the same position as her companion. She spoke again in that harsh language, and Katja was transfixed by her lips as she articulated the words. Dark grey, nearly black, they were striking against her white teeth. Her skin was a paler shade of grey, but not by much, and her markings were a mercurial silver over her skin. She was as hard as the man who sat behind her, and Katja felt no warmth coming from her. Where the man seemed to hunger, the woman saw her as simple fodder. Bland and boring.

“She wants to know why it is so important that you see her brother. As an important man in the city, he cannot be bothered for something trivial, and it always seems as though your companions are bringing someone who cannot make their point. Ageron has asked her to cull the refuse to find the real problems. Prove you are not a weed.” Jassine looked between the two, sliding the pad of one thumb over the back of her hand.

“You will speak for me?”

“I will, Katja.”

“Alright.” Katja had asked for the chance to speak, but now that she had exactly what she wanted, she found the words impossible to say. There were a thousand things, and yet none of them seemed right. “We need this help, or we will die.” She ignored the soft groan from Neyila as the message was relayed, but she couldn't help the wince when Chilanu laughed.

“You brought a war to our shores. It is only right that you stand and die on your own, not that we fight your battles for you and die alongside those who have done nothing to better us.” Jassine's gentler voice did not take the heat from the words spoken, and Katja found herself nodding.

“You're right. But when they've finished with us, they'll come after you. You and everyone else, and you won't have the resources to fight them.” She thought for a moment, her head tilting. “We have experience that you do not. We know what they are capable of, which is why we ask for help from you. Our world had many things. Gyrocopters. Airships. Cannons and dragons and magic. Everything we had is now rubble, because we were not prepared. Because we did not listen.

“Maybe we have not given you that knowledge, but you have not asked it of us, either. I do not know what my people can give you. I've been on this world for less than a month, and my eyes have been opened to how beautiful and dangerous it is. I want to believe that there is something we can start with. Some deal we can make that begins a whole new chapter for both of our people. We have so much to offer, if you would only give us a chance.”

Chilanu leaned forward with the grace and speed of a hunting cat, and it took all of Katja's will not to leap back as the pale eyes caught her own. “This world is an old one, off-worlder. From what I have come to understand, perhaps it is far more old than even your own. The land bears scars you could never imagine, and it bears them beneath eons of rock, so that the only thing that keeps them in our memory are the tales we tell. We are an old race, and you and yours are young. Even the oldest of you are but a gleam in the eye of a mother and father newly born.”

Her eyes, unsettling as they were, settled instead on Neyila. “You have come here several times, and every time you have thrown yourself at the feet of the leaders and begged. You have shown no spine. Your leaders sent this girl, this whelp -” she flicked a few fingers at Katja dismissively, “and she speaks better with her spine trembling and upright than any that have come before her. She was chosen well. She will make a good...”

Jassine paused, struggling for the word that would translate from the throaty sound that Chilanu made. “I'm sorry, Katja. The closest word that I can think of to translate is slave. A servant.”

It was Neyila who moved, the sound of a growl coming from her throat. The words she spoke were quick and just as harsh, and made in clear anger as her hand settled protectively on Katja's shoulder. Chilanu laughed again, and a thrill went up Katja's spine as the male joined her in the sound.

“Your Hylosian is getting better, but I'm fairly certain that I do not, in fact, lay with hounds.” The woman's black lips parted, and she licked her top lip in thought. “I will make you a deal, Houndstooth. Best me and my mate in a game of cards, and I will allow your little runt to meet with my brother. I make no promises past that point. Either she bewitches him and he makes her a house slave for the duration of her stay, or he finds her droll and boring and throws her off a cliff. I find the second to be quite interesting, I admit.”

Neyila sobered, and murmured a reply. Chilanu's lips quirked in a grin, her hands moving in a gesture of choice. “Your need is dire, Houndstooth. I will make the deal sweeter. Play the game, and she will see my brother. Win the game, and I will allow her Ayera to go with her, no doubt protecting her from my brother's... tastes.” The woman flicked her gaze to Katja, and she knew at that moment that the words were being translated for her benefit. So she knew exactly what was being given, but before she could say a word, Neyila nodded.

“Good. As always, the host chooses the game.” From a satchel beside her, she pulled a deck of cards and waited as Katja was given a seat with Jassine, while Tolismir and Neyila moved to sit across Chilanu and her mate, now introduced as Stroman. “We will be playing kerop, with extension. Those who are not in the game may not interfere with those who are, or the deal is lost. I will permit, however, for the translations to continue. For the whelp's benefit.”

Katja glanced at Jassine as the Ayera took her hand and squeezed. Though confusion was plain, Jassine did not explain as the cards were dealt, and so the game began. Near immediately, Katja noticed the similarities to poker, often played at the docks, though only two played; Stroman and Neyila. After a few tense minutes, the hand went to Neyila, and the man leaned back, undoing his sash and setting it on the table.

“My mate wears very little, Houndstooth. It should be easy to win the first round.” Chilanu reached for a few sweet berries in a bowl, and dropped them into her mouth as Tolismir dealt the next hand. This one was lost, and Neyila kicked off her sandals belligerently. Stroman laughed as Chilanu passed out the next hand, and so it became a harsher game. After several hands, it was Neyila who wore nearly nothing, and every piece of clothing that came off was paired with a glance at Katja that seemed to beg for her to understand.

With one piece of clothing on each of them, and Katja frowning as she realized that there was something quite off about the hands that had been dealt, the final hand was played with breath and hands held as Jassine's grip reminded the half-blood that she could not interfere, but it did not stop her from groaning as Neyila was defeated, and both she and Stroman stood. He preened as she stripped the slip of pale green from her, and took her arm to lead her to the bench set just apart from the table.

“Your turn, mate of Houndstooth. Your woman's body will be the currency now. Best not lose. Stroman does not play gentle with his partners, I can assure you.” Chilanu's grin was quick and wicked as Neyila sat with Stroman just beside her, his hand already sliding along her collarbone. “We'll start with the ears. I've heard they're quite sensitive, compared to our own.”

Tolismir took the cards handed to him, but Katja read his expression well enough. He was no hand at cards, and knew that he would hardly have a hope to help Neyila. Katja wished she could help him, but could not suppress the wince as Tolismir gave up cards and ended with a hand far worse than even Chilanu's pitiful one. Stroman took great pleasure in trailing his thumb over the crest of one slightly tipped ear, moving close enough to nip at the very tip and then trace his tongue down towards the lobe.

Once more the cards were dealt, and this time it was Neyila's neck that was threatened. Stroman let his hand wander between Neyila's breasts and lower, fanning fingers over her stomach as his lips moved in soft words completely unheard. Tolismir lost the hand again, and a sob was brought from the blonde as the much larger man bit the flesh of her neck and let the sensitive skin scrape free from his bite. He softened the pain with gentle suckling, making certain that Tolismir saw the mark that was left when he was finished.

A third hand was lost, and Neyila found her shoulders grazed with rough lips. A fourth, and Stroman's hands dragged fingers along her inner thighs. When the fifth was lost and his mouth dragged along the swell of a breast, she whimpered her complaint to Tolismir, who could do little more than look to her, grip his cards roughly, then play the game. This time, there was a stroke of luck as the next three hands were won by him, and Chilanu stripped down slowly but surely.

Neyila groaned as Tolismir lost again, and her nipple was caught between the teeth of Chilanu's partner. He murmured something, and the groan became a whimpered moan of fear and her head shook. Katja's quick glance at Jassine showed that the Ayera was paying attention to the hunter and little else, so Katja returned her attention to Tolismir in time to see him win once more.

A short-lived victory, as the next several hands were lost, and Neyila's moan became more fear-laced sobs until at last Jassine touched Katja's arm and pointed to Neyila. The hunter straddled Stroman's lap, his hands holding her arms behind her as she knelt with her back facing him, leaning forward just slightly. Katja's breath hitched as she realized why there was such a sound hidden in what should have been moans. It was small, but the swell was there. Stroman's shaft was long and thick, his crown pushing at her lips as he all but dared Tolismir to fail his next hand.

He did, and though Neyila struggled, Stroman's grip was iron on her arms, and she was dragged down inch by inch until the petite woman was impaled nearly wholly by the man's impressive length. Stroman pulled her back, his free hand looping around the front of Neyila's throat as he thrust himself up, forcing the last two inches into her, making her wail with pain and shame. Her eyes were half-closed, focused entirely on Tolismir, and the look was impossible to misread. She was begging him to forgive her, even as the man beneath her set a pace that had Katja's stomach twisting with empathy.

Stroman's fingers pushed into Neyila's mouth, muffling her words, but they would have fallen on deaf ears. Katja had never seen Tolismir as anything but neutral or kind. She had never seen him angry, never seen the scarred mouth set in a grim line, never seen the white that his knuckles turned when gripping something too hard. His normally blue-green eyes were cold as ice now, and she knew in her very core that there was more than just simple anger.

“You will lose the moment she climaxes. He's well trained, and it will not be long.” Chilanu propped an elbow on the table, her hand framing her cheek as she tapped her cards on the table. Tolismir glanced at his cards, then played his hand. He lost, again. Again. And twice more. Katja looked away as Stroman dragged nails down Neyila's chest, leaving welts that bled between her breasts and lower, tormenting the hunter by scraping over her barely swollen belly until she was sure to wrench free of his grasp. Yet he held, and she plead, and the game continued.

A stroke of luck, as two hands were won in Tolismir's favor. He did not wait for the slip of silver cloth to be tossed away. One moment he was sitting across from the woman, the next he was behind her, his hand curled in her silver hair and jerking. Chilanu hit the ground hard with Tolismir above her, and Katja uttered a soft scream as metal flashed in his hand and the slip was sliced clean through and torn away by his rough hands.

Neyila was bleeding. Every scar on her body was a memory, she knew, but Katja knew that the scratches and bruises she was gaining now would be so much more than the old wounds. Designs drawn by Stroman's nails bedecked her like the markings both Hylios wore in gold and silver on their arms and sides, but these hurt. The sweat slid into the scrapes, and Neyila's voice broke in moans and sobs, her eyes shut tight as she fought back the impending orgasm wrought by his assault on her body.

There was nothing kind about the way Tolismir lifted Chilanu's ass, his hand on the back of her neck in a grip that might have broken it if he leaned even a little. Katja saw a dusting of white hair across the dark netherlips of the Hylios woman, wet with anticipation, but that didn't stop the cry of shock and the grunt of pain as Tolismir's dagger hilt was rammed into her, stretching her around as he quickly set a pace with the unyielding leather and metal that threatened to leave horrible bruising. Chilanu's nails dragged across the wooden floor, and Tolismir released her neck only to grab a small stoppered bottle of wine shaped much like a pear from the table. 

Leaning more heavily on her for a moment, he instead moved and straddled her back, leaning over her ass as he withdrew the dagger and slid the glass along her sodden lips instead before pushing it within. Her discomfort was clear, but she had seen him take the bottle and knew what it was that he was now forcing into her inch by delicate inch. “Don't clench,” he warned in Common, and she needed no translation as the first bulb, more than enough to toy with the most sensitive first few inches of her wanting passage, settled firmly in place.

He tapped the glass and she shuddered, suddenly completely still. His dagger flipped in his hand, and he pushed the hilt to her puckered ring, pressing unhesitatingly past the barrier until he could hilt it completely inside. The simplest move made the glass bottle move, and his hand moved low once more, his free hand undoing the laces to his pants as he slid further back until Chilanu's face was at his groin, pressing his shaft against her cheek. Slipping his hand beneath her, his fingers found her clit and kneaded it, his face impassive as her mouth took in his cock.

His free hand found her hair, pinning her head in place as he used her, and Jassine would not let Katja look away from any of it. Not from the reprieve that Neyila had been given as Stroman watched his own mate placed so precariously, answering to the whims of a man who fucked her mouth until it yielded and he could hilt easily within her throat on every stroke, holding her in place until her breath was nearly gone. “Yield,” he growled, and Katja prayed that she would so that the madness would end. Jassine shifted in her chair as the Hylios woman groaned, finally jerking from his grasp and uttering something beneath her breath that sounded raw and painful. Tolismir moved his hand, pulling the bottle from her shuddering passage, and as it left the woman spasmed and came, the floor becoming drenched beneath her.

Stroman did not resist as Tolismir stood and stormed to him, all but offering up the weeping half-elf to him before ducking out of the way to attend to Chilanu. The Hylios woman dd not move, but instead grasped Stroman's shaft in her hand, and stroked him roughly until he released a groan and painted her face with his seed, so much that it dripped from her chin and painted the floor.

The table heaved as Tolismir dropped Neyila upon it, not a moment lost as he let himself sink into her. He was not gentle, and Katja was reminded, oddly, of a wolf reclaiming what was his. Neyila's hands were wound in his hair, and she murmured words to him in Thalassian as he held her hips and pulled her into him until her legs were looped around him and toes curled tightly, so tightly. Her whimper of pain was more present than her moans, his mouth closed on her neck and she loosed a pain-tangled moan that was akin to a howl, her back bending, pressing her sore body up against him as she fell over the precipice into her bliss.

Only then did he calm, pressing his scarred lips to her cheek, her jaw, her forehead, murmuring words that Katja could not understand and yet felt as if she did. They wept together, and Tolismir's hand touched on her stomach moments before he pulled her to him and groaned, spilling his seed within his mate. Katja could hear the soft plip-plat as it left the woman and hit the floor, but more than that, she heard the tender words traded in a musical language nearly dead.

“They said -” Jassine cut off as Katja shook her head, and smiled. “As you wish, Katja.”

As Tolismir withdrew from his partner and laced himself, helping the battered and sore Neyila off the table and back into her own clothes, no one noticed that Chilanu and her mate were gone.

No one cared.


	5. Chapter Five

The docks were nothing beneath Slate's hooves, the horse streaking like a bat loosed from Hell itself through the city. Merchants and whores moved aside quickly, shouts of anger following the mighty beast before being swallowed up by the noise of a bustling port. Katja, astride his back and hugging the Echo around his neck, laughed as children took a handful of steps to try to keep up, and only fell behind as well. She let the horse lead, closing her eyes tight as he lunged from the dock to the water, and continued his breakneck pace.

Her eyes opened, one after the other, and she gazed down in mute amazement to where the water acted like a road of glass, Slate's heavy hooves treating it as nothing more than more purchase while fish and slim Niquani chased him from beneath the surface. He raced through waves, the world becoming colorless and misty with each rising swell, her loose shift and hair moving about her as if the water was taking her with it though she remained in place. The Niquani outlasted the fish, the female's glittering tails gorgeous even in the monochrome of whatever realm it was that he spurred her through when he used his skills, but they too fell away as the horse continued further out to sea, where the waves were hardly ripples.

As he slowed and turned for her to view the city they had left behind, she sat straight in the saddle and threw her arms up, howling to the sky in sheer joy. Squeezing her knees around him, she urged the horse to rear, kicking his hooves out before turning to run back towards the coast, letting the waves chase him in as he touched sand as white as sugar and continued on towards the tall palms that flanked the shore. Once more crouched over his neck, she urged him faster with knuckles kneading along his coat, his mane whipping wildly into her own hair.

Only when his hooves met sand did he ease up, trotting a large arc along the bank before stopping and allowing his rider to disembark. She hit sand and wobbled, laughing to herself while her knees met the silky ground. For a long time, she simply knelt there, letting the water soothe her while the breeze coaxed her hair free of the tie that bound it, settling it in chocolate waves down her silver-clothed shoulders and back. Slate, in a very un-horselike move, settled himself to lay behind her, allowing her to lay back against his broad side with her hands shading her eyes.

It had been a week since the first night, and there had been little amusement for her since. There had been little of anything, as Neyila and Tolismir had spent more time locked in their room coming to terms with their impending parenthood. Katja had been left to her own devices, which generally meant following Jassine as much as possible, and annoying the poor woman with questions. While the Ayera had been incredibly patient, it seemed that even she had a breaking point, and Katja had been sent out into the town with what little knowledge she had, and a whole host of curiosity. Thankfully, there had been others there willing to help.

Nol had taken what time he could to show her around, even accompanying her to the best place to watch the ceremony for the Hylios children. Katja as sure that she would have understood more if she had been raised around such traditions, but as it was, it seemed more work than she ever would have been willing to put into anything. As it was, Ageron had walked away with two new brothers and a sister, and the city had spent the next several days caught between drunken bartering and drunken celebrations, and Katja had found her room to be a place of utter solace.

But even that had begun to bore her, and after a morning spent helping clean out the stables beside the inn, Katja had taken Slate and simply run. Neyila would, no doubt, have very cross words with her when she returned, but there was no other option. Even as an adult among half-elves, in fact several years an adult, Katja still harbored the impatience of a juvenile, and the impishness of a woman. Nol had been unable to accompany her, and she found she missed the company of the boy, but she rather liked the quiet scene, with just her and the horse she adored.

Slate chose that moment to whicker, alerting her at first to nothing more than the steady thumping of something unfamiliar. It could have been her heart, or the drums that were used to communicate to the smaller towns along the coast, but there was something much more uniform and rapid about the beats. Pushing herself up, she peered from right to left, her eyes narrowing at a scene that was coming ever closer.

Katja had quickly learned to identify people by their colors in the enormous city. First, there were the clothes. The tunic of white was a familiar sight to her, worn by any Ayera she had so far seen and immediately placing them as servants or whores in her mind. What was not familiar was her coloring; Ayera had tended towards paler skin and gemtone hair colors, this one was a rich and deep brown, with hair so black it was blue in the sunlight. It made Katja wonder if she was even Ayera at all, and that was enough to keep her attention on the pair.

The woman was running, stumbling even, through sand that no doubt hurt upon her bare feet. Her head was turned back the way she was coming from, watching the man who maintained an easy lope after her. Hylios were easy to pick out from a crowd, and Katja had learned that the appetite she had seen that first day at the card table was one shared by all of them. They were insatiable, and she recognized the hunger in his eyes as he followed his prey, just fast enough to keep her running and afraid. 

Neyila had warned Katja not to get into trouble. She had been warned to mind her own business, and to not bother the locals in any way that would have been regarded as poor. Katja had sworn to uphold that small rule, and now she was looking at the one possible caveat. She had been raised right, and she had been taught good and bad. The fear that the woman was showing was real, it could not be faked, not by any master artist. It would have been easy to just lay back against Slate's warm side and let the scene play out...

… but Katja would never look at herself the same way again.

Slate snorted as she stood, as if warning her that what she was about to do was absolutely foolish, and that she should sit right back down and behave. Her mind made up, she did the exact opposite, running towards the woman to grab the dark wrist, and pull her towards the thickly growing trees. She saw the man's hunger go to surprise, and then rage as Katja pushed the woman into the growth.

Chilanu and Stroman had both been intimidating in their own ways. The Hylios were a beautiful race, not in the way that an elven woman or man was beautiful, but in the raw, hungry, primal nature of how they looked at the world. How they moved, how they spoke, how they watched. The man that stared her down could have made either of the Hylios she knew fling themselves from the top of the cliffs with just a look, and Katja realized far too late that she had helped the rabbit escape, and set the lion's eyes on the gazelle instead.

It was something she kept in mind as he started towards her, muscled coiled beneath bronzed skin slick with the sweat of his pursuit. For a moment, she considered crashing through the brush after the woman. That moment passed, and she backpedaled then turned away from him to flee further down the beach, listening to one warning cry from Slate before he was out of her sight and the girl was alone on the unfamiliar beach, with one very angry man in pursuit.

Katja was not an innocent woman. She had grown up in the wilds, grown up in a place that had only become harsher as the years passed, and even when Marric had brought her and Elenie into the sanctuary of Grizzly Hills, she had proven herself to be as wild as they came. With some fondness, she remembered the first - and last – time she had stolen bread from the baker, not realizing that she had merely to ask and it would have been given. She had led the town on quite the merry chase, ending with her shimmying up the very walls that encircled the town as if she were little more than a monkey.

The town had laughed, any anger dispelled by the sight of the underfed and frightened girl brandishing the long loaf like a sword perched atop the spiked wall, but when there was something to be done in the trees, Katja had always been called on. It had been several months since she had needed to climb, but she was sure that she could do so if it came right down to it. A fact she held tight to as the beach began to change to harsh stone beneath her, and a cliff rose up to block her progress. She had two choices; veer left into the tide pools, or go right into the jungle. With the footsteps of her pursuer growing closer, she turned to look at him.

Her chest ached, every breath one that she coveted until she had no choice but to release it. Sweat made her hair and clothes stick to her skin, and yet he seemed as though he had just walked in from the water. His hair was dark like hers, but sun-touched. She let him get closer, watched his quick lope become a slow padding, let him believe that she was truly trapped and helpless. Her eyes scoured the markings on him, gold against his skin, which was drawn tight over a body that spoke of hard activity. Likely chasing down women.

When she could see the hunger in his eyes again, when she could see him lick his lips, and the sweat vanish into the rough stubble he bore on his face, she mocked him with nothing more than a smile. A grin, quick and easy and all too rewarding as his gold-touched eyes shot wide, and she dove into the brush, her tunic ripping from the wild grasp he managed for all of a few seconds. His words of anger were harsh on her ears, but she did nothing more than answer with a laugh. He was no longer the lion after the lamb. He was the man chasing the woman, and this woman had no need to know the layout of the jungle – all trees went up.

And up was exactly where she intended on going. Gripping the thick bark of one of the trees, she ignored the bites of distressed insects and pulled herself upwards, skinning knees and feet as she fought to find the perfect purchase. It was found as he crashed after her, a mad swipe granting him only the briefest touch of her heel before she was up and out of his reach. Only a few inches. She all but taunted him with that knowledge, going so far as to dangle her toes into his range before jerking them back as he lunged again.

She laughed, glanced up into the canopy and then pulled herself higher until she could crouch on a branch and watch him. Oh, he was angry. He paced like a wildcat deprived of an easy meal, his hands curled into talons while he considered his choices. He could follow her, and part of her hoped he did. The more he chased her, the more distance the other woman could get. If he chased her into the trees, the chase itself would become far more dangerous. She was light and nimble, but he was not.

She ducked as he threw a stone up at her, and then laughed at him when it sailed by. He responded with more, a volley of them that she realized, almost too late, were slowly guiding her to the more fragile end of the branch. If she stood, she risked getting hit, and she knew that he was not simply tossing them to get her attention. One shot would hurt. Two would be enough to get her to drop, but it was becoming less and less of an option. As a larger stone flew by her thigh and she ran out of branch, she took in a breath and launched herself into the air over his head, arms hooking over another branch that dipped and groaned almost in tandem with herself.

The impact shook the breath from her, and she gathered it back only to feel his hand grasp her ankle and pull hard. She kicked once, and then again, and was rewarded with a grunt of pain and the release of her foot, allowing her to clamber up onto the branch. He held his eye, and his good one glared at her, promising her pain beyond measure if he ever got his hands on her. Something he intended to do, sweeping to the base of the tree and climbing upwards. Graceful on the ground, it was clear that the air was not his forte, and she was already three trees away by the time he had made it to the first set of branches.

She watched him swipe bugs and dirt from his skin, watched his eyes follow her as she stepped easily across branches as if the trees were simply a part of her. While he scrambled, she danced gracefully, several trees away by the time he finally was steady, and he didn't let that be all. While not graceful in the trees, he was still fast, and he had clearly watched her own path. Forced to think several steps ahead as he barreled towards her like a kodo on fire, she had to rely on cunning instead of speed as the gaps between branches and trees became larger.

Ducking beneath a scraggly branch, she paused, her mind working. A simple pull showed how supple it was, and so she pulled it with her and waited. While her pursuer thundered towards her, she counted off the steps until she could see him just beyond the trunk, and released the branch. It hit him solidly, air whizzing around it like a whip as it struck. She flinched, and then hissed when she realized that her attack had forced him from the tree. Face down in the fallen leaves and dirt, he wasn't moving at all, not even a breath. 

Katja's glee at having won changed rapidly to concern, and then downright fear. A Hylios death on her hands would not help matters at all, and she had learned just how defensive of family they could be. Now frowning, she let herself drop from the branches to land lightly upon the ground, creeping closer. A hand touched on his shoulder, shaking him gently, but he still did not respond. Her attempt became rougher, and a soft mewl of fear left her when he still failed to respond. Standing, she turned her back on him and ran hands through her hair.

Her worry and concern became surprise and anger as she was struck from behind, the man growling into her ear as hands gripped her own to keep her from striking him. He formed words she could not understand, easily outmaneuvering her desperate attempts to catch him in a painful area along his legs or feet. When her wriggling failed, she turned instead to the childish tactic of biting what skin she could reach. He roared in pain as her canines sunk into his skin, dropping her only to catch her again by the hair.

This time, she screamed. In pain, and in anger, she screamed as if the single sound might bring the city down upon his ears. It stifled when she realized, as he pulled her to the ground and set his knees upon her legs, that he enjoyed it. That he wanted her to scream, and so she silenced herself and went instead to fighting him again. He was stronger, and bigger, but she proved a worthy opponent as she twisted her limbs out from his grasp and raked nails across his rugged face. His hiss of pain was met with a yelp of her own as he struck her once, and then again, across the face. She tasted blood, and made sure he knew it when she spat at him, bloody saliva hitting the bridge of his nose to trail along his skin.

When he made the fool choice to bend his head near, she bit him again, this time on the jaw. Instead of hitting her, his hand ripped the fabric of her tunic, leaving her in little more than the simple linen she wore for comfort. Blood dripped from the tear in his skin, and she glared up at him as he spoke words that were surely meant to be insulting, his hand palming her covered breast like a baker kneaded bread before it went lower, and he dragged his thumb over her covered labia. His grin broadened as she flushed unbidden, fingers slipping beneath the fabric to press at her folds, and she became a hellcat again, wrenching her arm free and managing to land a blow across his already bleeding jaw that threw him back and stunned him.

She wasted no time, flipping onto her front to scramble away, but like a lion mounting it's mate, he was there again, his teeth in her shoulder while his hands wrestled her underwear down, tearing the thin fabric in doing so. The large hands clung to her hips, drawing the toned cheeks of her ass apart, and she felt blessed relief when her squirming made his first thrust miss, his shaft skidding along her labia to stab rudely at her stomach. He growled a threat, and Katja closed her eyes in anticipation of the worst, her squirming doing little against his new, much tighter, grip.

The pain never came. She heard the trees part and the very angry whinny that shrieked through the trees just moments before Slate blew into the copse, rearing above the man with every intention of caving his skull in. Wisely, the man withdrew and scrambled away, and Slate's hooves hit ground, flanking Katja's body. The girl grasped one strong leg, using it to pull herself up to stand, ignoring her legs that shook, and then pulled herself up astride the great back of the horse.

The man frowned the entire time, but dared not come closer to the horse, who glared at him with head lowered and ears flat against his skull. With Katja safely astride him, Slate turned and dashed from the clearing, leaving the vexed male grumbling after, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of a hand.

Back in her room at the inn, Katja scrubbed at the painful bruise across her face, flinching when she ground sand into the split lip her attacker had given her. Throwing down the cloth, she braced her shaking hands against the sink and closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing against the clinging, claustrophobic fear threatening to choke her into tears. The gentle touch on her arm made her yelp, a hand already rising to strike at what she perceived as a threat, only to have the hand caught gently in Tolismir's grip.

Her breathing quickened, and finally she sobbed, not resisting as the taller man drew her to him and held her while she cried her fear against his leathers. He asked no questions, only ran his hand over the top of her head until she had quieted and was pushing away from him. The look he had was a murderous one when he looked her over, not nearly as blind as she wanted to believe. The tattered condition of her clothing made her very aware of his presence, and he backed up a step to give her the room she hadn't even been aware that she needed.

“What the hell happened to you!?”

Katja flinched twice – once for the shock in the words, a second time because her entire body had begun to hurt. Neyila and Jassine peered at her from the door, and if Toli's look was a murderous one, Neyila's was a new brand of borderline genocidal. Jassine swept past, hanging the clothing she carried over a chair before pulling a small box from a drawer beneath the sink. 

Slowly, Katja went through the tale of the day, unable to help squirming like a child as the Ayera smoothed balm onto her scratches, bites, and welts. The cream stung, then warmed and soothed, and a quick glance into the mirror showed the injuries fading until nearly impossible to see. When the Ayera reached the bite upon her shoulder, Neyila lost it, and it was only Toli holding her with a hand clapped over her mouth while she screamed clever obscenities that kept her from storming out and into the bar to find out who had harmed her ward.

“Katja would garner no sympathy, Houndstooth. Inside the city, the laws are strict. Outside? All is fair game. Her bravery was good and fine, but she was caught, and the man had every right to take out his hunger on her. I would not be surprised if he appeals to Ageron in an attempt to have her for himself.” Jassine helped Katja from her clothes, and Tolismir stepped out of the bathroom to give them privacy.

“She's supposed to meet Goldleaf in less than an hour. If I see that man there, I'll tear his spine out from his chest, and strangle him with it.” The hunter folded her arms, and Katja couldn't help but notice how temperamental she had become in just a week. It made her smile, but the knowledge that the meeting was so soon made her nervous. “Chilanu will be here to take the both of you to her brother. We, of course, are not allowed to accompany you. I suppose breaking a priceless relic was bad form. So even if I wanted to kill, I couldn't. I am glad you are able to go with her, Jassine.”

The Ayera smiled, pulling Katja to the bath and all but shoving her in. “I will watch her as though she is my own child, Houndstooth. You would be better served by caring for yourself. A first child is an experience that can never be repeated. Let me care for this one, while you prepare for your own. The time will pass quickly.” She motioned for the brush on the sink, and Neyila handed it over, seating herself on the edge of the bath with legs dangling inside the warm water.

“I promised your mother, Kat. You're here to get us the help we'll need, but if you think for even a moment that you're in trouble, you get out of there. It's not worth it to gain so little, when you lose so much.” Neyila took the brush back, combing through Katja's snarled hair while Jassine found the subtly scented soap that had become Katja's favorite. They worked in quiet, nothing but the brief groan of pain when a particularly stubborn tangle refused to relinquish itself to the brush sounding out. Each had their own thoughts, but Katja's were still focused on the fear she felt.

She could still feel that hungry gaze, still feel his painful grasp on her hips, his teeth in her shoulder a brutal reminder to how close she had come to being used and tossed aside. Katja knew that the fear was more than just the brutality of the attack. That had been painful, but worse had been the disgusting fear that she would be little more than a stain upon his memory. Vanessa's spiteful words echoed in her head, tearing down her self-worth until she felt as if she might cry. Heaving a staggering breath, she shoved the thoughts from her mind and took the offered cloth from Jassine to clean herself.

Concern was etched on the features of both of the other women, and Neyila considered the needs of the people over the obvious needs of the girl before her. It would be easy to cancel everything and take her back home, but even if that was possible, it would risk everything, and somehow she knew that Katja would not back down. Releasing Katja's hair to let it be washed, the hunter stood and groaned. “I have some things that I need to do. Chilanu will be here shortly, and then you'll be on your way. Keep in touch, alright? Letters, you can even visit us. Write your mother, too.”

Katja risked opening her eye with a clot of bubbles on her brow, and nodded. “I'll be good, I promise. I'll send Jassine the moment I have trouble.” She flashed a smile that held none of the fear she felt, though it did nothing to ease Neyila's quiet concern. Nodding briefly to the two, the hunter stood and went to the door, Toli's arm appearing around her waist. His own eyes flashed back to the bath, and he nodded, silently assuring Katja that she would be watched as best as possible. When the two left, there was an uncomfortable silence.

At Jassine's urgings, she rinsed quickly and left the bath, her shoulder stinging and receiving another cooling swipe from the balm before she was helped into a loosely flowing dress in the color of a sunset, pale yellow at her shoulders and breasts, fading into oranges and reds at the hem. Gold jewelry was set in her ears and around her neck, a thick gold belt marked with leaves settled around her hips. The wispy cloth was light on her skin, and moved like silk around her as she moved. Her hair was pulled up, braided and twined with small decorations of golden leaves, and while Jassine removed a small box of cosmetics, she took one look at Katja and settled them back away with a shake of her head.

“Lovely. Near impossible to tell that you were in a skirmish earlier.” Her head turned to the door as a knock sounded, and Chilanu let herself in without asking. The dark-skinned woman took one look at Katja and spoke, leaving the Ayera blinking in surprise.

“She says that you do justice to the sunset, and wonders if twilight will suit you as well.” Jassine motioned to the dress at Katja's inquisitive glance, before both followed the Hylios woman out of the room. Jassine closed the door behind them, taking up a place behind Katja while Chilanu guided them down into the stables. Slate waited, looking quite grumpy in a new bridle and saddle, each marked with the Goldleaf house sigil. As if reading her mind, Jassine shook her head. “Marking Slate as property is for his protection, nothing more. He is still yours, unless Ageron purchases him from you.”

Grunting a response, Katja allowed herself to be lifted into the saddle, settling side-saddle as befit the leather and chain contraption. Slate huffed his displeasure, and she offered a loving stroke to his neck as they set off, traversing the docks and platforms to the private road that scaled the cliffs up to the manse. The road began as rugged as the city itself, but further up the dirt became stone, and then marble bricks placed uniformly. Lush plants flanked the road in carefully manicured gardens, exotic flowers providing sprays of color against gemtone greens.

At Chilanu's request, she slipped from the back of her horse, and a series of servants came forward to coax the massive animal away from the trio. Katja worried quietly, her eyes on the building in front of her, impossibly large and built with cream colored marble veined in dusky orange, with all fixtures in a muddied gold that nearly resembled bronze. Led up the stairs and through the front door, Katja was met with a large room flanked with pillars. Stairs could be seen past curtains of gauzy white, and servants came and went as Chilanu ordered, never ceasing her steps towards a balcony that hung over the edge of the cliff, providing a breathtaking view of the bay and expanse of sea.

Katja had told herself she would not show weakness, but something about the broad back that faced her and Jassine unnerved her. Her mind screamed at her like a child pulling the hair of another, and she stopped her easy walk as Chilanu touched the shoulder of the man who watched his city bustle about. The sun, so near to setting, cast a flaming halo around his head, dark hair bound back so as not to interfere with the bandage on his jaw. He bent his head to kiss his sister upon her brow, and clapped a hand to her shoulder as he turned fully.

She felt her knees weaken, and the screams of her mind went dreadfully silent. She fought to keep her expression neutral while Chilanu spoke with him, her hands folded in front of her. No, not folded. Despite her best attempts, they knit and tangled, squeezed and tugged in nervous anticipation. Jassine watched her, not making a sound as Katja looked around the grand hall instead of at the man, confusion muddying perfect features.

“Welcome to my home.” The man moved from the balcony, descending the few stairs with a leisurely pace, perfectly suited to one who owned more wealth than the entire city below them. His words were thickly accented, his native tone giving the Common language a more feral, primal sound that drew Katja's attention as if she had been collared and leashed to the hand he held out in a very human greeting. “Surprised? Your companion has visited my home several times over the years, and I have begun to learn the language. Perhaps,” he took her hand gently, his lips pulled in a grin, “you would be willing to teach me more?”

She could do no more than nod, while her eyes ran over the welts and scratches on his form, newly made and barely tended to. The white of the bandage on his jaw was stark against his skin, and his eyes betrayed the gentle grin. They were hungry and knowing, devouring her as they had on the beach that morning. When words refused to come, she nodded again and gave him that same vexing smile, showing even the canines that had torn his jaw. His smile faltered, and anger flashed briefly in his eyes before he released her and turned to speak with Jassine, his gaze lingering just long enough for her to realize something very important.

The gazelle was now caged.


	6. Chapter Six

“Your Ayera tells me that you are very new to our world.” Ageron settled comfortably into his chair, resting his elbows upon the arms of the chair, his fingers grazing beneath his chin. His dark eyes settled upon the woman who sat beside him, watching her look out over the garden that he had escorted her to. They had spent three hours speaking of the flora and fountains, but she had never once spoken unless he had started it first. Yet, when she did speak, it was with clear opinion. No compliments to his vast superiority, only what she saw with those honey-colored eyes. Even now, when she looked at him with her head tilted into calloused fingertips, she did it with the hesitant distance of a beautiful bird.

“She also tells me that you are an... inexperienced woman who was sent to barter with me for the aid of my people against this... Legion. As I told your keeper the several times she came to ask for the same thing, we are not interested in battling the wars that you bring upon yourself.” He paused, and gave her the time to register the forming denial, and yet she showed no sign of it. Either she was sure that he merely toyed with her, or she had no care. Both displeased him. “However, your keepers were cunning, or lucky, enough to beat my sister at cards. No easy task.

“So, I'll hear you. Of course, you'll have to apologize in some way for your actions earlier today. It was hardly good form to interrupt what was not your business.” Her eyes flashed, and he smirked coldly. “This city is my property, off-worlder. Whatever is here, I can have with the snap of my fingers. That is my right, and I do not enjoy having my right taken away by an upstart visitor.” Ageron watched her stand, and moved the same, catching her wrist to spin and pull her close, gripping the one that raised to strike him with his free hand.

“The rules of the city do not extend to my home, girl. I have honor enough to fulfill the deal made by my sister, and honor enough to listen to you, but not enough to act a gentleman. I am not your keeper's mate, easily pushed about by a girl.” His arm closed around her, forcing her tight against his body while he continued. “I am a king, a man able to have you killed with just a frown, and you are naught but the slave girl beneath my heel.” She jerked in his grasp, and he tightened his grasp until she hissed in pain.

They were still for long moments, and he finally loosened his grip enough to allow her to stand without pain. “I'll make this easy for you, girl. Come willingly to my bed, and I'll give you half of my ships to help your people with their little war. Be my little plaything, and I'll make you my first girl, with all the house to bend to your knee. The only one you would serve is me, with your body, for the rest of your life.”

“Never.”

He'd made that offer a thousand times before, and it had never failed. He had collected a harem of women to please him with that simple phrase, each of them replaced as more became the first. Never had someone refused, and though it had never happened before, he found himself satisfied that the fire had not so easily been stifled with this one. It would make breaking her down far more fun in the long run. With a sigh, he pushed her away and shrugged.

“As you wish. We have no rooms, so you will sleep with me in mine. You will bathe with me, eat with me, and you will travel with me for as long as it takes me to trust your true intent. Until then, as much as you are a guest in this home, you are a person of... scrutiny. I don't believe that you are worthy of trust, given your impulsiveness.” He glanced at her over a shoulder, his hands linked behind his back. “I won't have you interrupting my work. Nor my... fun.”

“Fun.” The word was flat and stale, and yet he shivered with the fire hidden deep beneath it. That same fire turned into passion as she spoke, as the thin veneer of distance cracked and her anger took hold. “That's all that any of that is to you, then. Just... fun. It's fun to chase a woman down, is it? Fun to have them afraid of you, absolutely dry with their terror? You actually find that to be fun?”

“I find it to be delightful!” He whirled and stalked towards her, watching her chin lift and back straighten. “I can hear everything just by looking at them. They run, I hear their heart pound and their pulse thrum. They fight, and I can hear hope die when I pull them back, when I put them beneath my whims. Beneath my needs, and my hunger. Turned into nothing but my own personal entertainment that they will remain until I become bored with them.”

Katja's eyes narrowed, and he allowed her to slap away the hand that wandered over her collar. “Except that all of your women are Ayera. I know that much. What's it like, having an entire harem of women who accept your advances just because that's all they know to do? An entire race of women who aren't born, they're just... sent.” She looked him over, cold steel in her voice. “I bet you're the type to believe they've all been sent just for you.”

“They have, though. Every single one of them, sent to serve me and every one of them is better than the last. You can't begin to imagine how fulfilling that is, little girl.” He watched her turn and step away, and bit back the desire to clutch her to him again. No, she would come to him willingly. They all did.

“Fulfilling? Sounds boring.” She turned to face him again, hands upon her hips. “They know everything. There are no tricks for you, they know them all. Perhaps that makes you believe yourself smart if you manage to actually show one something new, but they'll never forget that.” Her hand lifted, finger not more than an inch from his mouth, and he yearned to bite the digit as she started to circle him. “They're the perfect companions. Too perfect. If you tell one a secret, they will all know them. You can never become close to one and share something, because it already knows. Sex?

“Sex is an automated activity. They flee because they know you like it. They're toying with you, but you think yourself to be the mighty hunter. The greatest pride in the life of a Hyliosian man is the day he is accepted by a woman who is his equal, and the seed is planted for their children to grow from. But you?” She dared to let her fingers slip across his back, and his own hands fist at his sides as she rounded on him. “You're a child playing at being a man. You think that the only thing important is domination, even the false domination that your Ayera allow you to play with.”

Her smirk was infuriating, and he longed to slap the dancing light of mirth from her eyes until it was nothing more than the dark perversity of fear. “You've never had to work for anything in your life, and that has made you weak. You, the pampered prince of your family, the one on which so many hopes are riding. You lounge about - ah!”

He could hold his temper no longer, his hand striking out as quick as a snake to strike fully on her cheek, and she fell hard to the floor, hate and anger blooming in her eyes more than the fear he wanted. It disappointed him, and he gripped her hair to pull her to her knees, a hand grabbing for the one she lifted to strike him with. “You would do well not to anger me, little girl. I'm larger than you, stronger than you, and have more power than you.” His grip tightened until she yelped and ceased struggling, consciously aware that her yelp alone had started a reaction just inches from her eyes.

It didn't stop the venom in her voice. “And by telling me all of that, you've done nothing more than prove just how little all of that compares to me. You are a tiny, little man with a large ego!” Her free hand jumped out, slamming into the bulge barely contained in his pants, and he howled out in pain and fell, dragging her with him to the floor. “Let me go, or I'll hit you again, little boy!”

He hauled her up beneath him, curling his hand around her throat to hold her still while he hissed into her ear. “Do that again, and I will have your head on a pike to send back to your off-world, half-breed family.” A warning noise left him as she twitched, and he growled when he continued. “I will spell this out plainly, so that you will know the extent of my power. If you displease me in any manner, I will not only deny your people the help they've sent you to fetch, I will go so far as to aid the hellions that you claim are coming. I will chain you to your knees and make you watch them die, and when they are dead and buried, I will take you upon their graves. Am I understood?”

The grip on her throat eased enough for her to speak, and she croaked a confirmation, hissing as he shoved her roughly to the ground and stood. “Get up, and get out of my sight. Your Ayera will take you to your chambers. I'll see you when it is time to rest.” 

She managed to stand with far more grace than she felt she was capable of, meeting his triumphant expression with a neutral one of her own that seemed to wilt his joy into just minor enjoyment. “As you wish.” Turning away, she walked until he was out of sight, starting into a run as something crashed and broke behind her, victim to his temper. Finding Slate, she pulled off the saddle and fancy barding and sprang up onto his back, and was gone down the road, unwilling to let anyone see the tears of fear and pain that glittered in the sunset.

Her first night would become the setting for the first two months of her stay. Aware that he could hardly hope to win the war that had been set up in his mind by merely forcing her to bend under him, Ageron chose instead to whittle her resolve down by example. Katja was woken by the sounds of his forceful rutting nightly, Jassine's muffled voice easily heard past the divider between the main quarters and the “guest” room she shared with her Ayera. Each night was a blatant display, with his manipulation of Jassine until the point he was so close, and only then would Katja appear, dressed in a loose gown, never crossing into his room and never looking anywhere but right at him.

She was beautiful, no matter how he upset her with the display. Her loose hair curled about her shoulders, and the sleepy expression had an erotic touch to it that he couldn't quite place. But her refusal to watch him rut her servant only brought back her words from that second altercation. He craved knowing how she, an inexperienced young woman, would react beneath him, and if all of her noises would be as full and rich as her voice was, or if they would change depending on how well he played her. When she turned away and return to bed, he found that he missed her, and that he no longer wished to soil Jassine. He wanted her, and she had somehow spoiled what had always been part of his fun.

He tried to ignore such things. Nights passed, and his Ayera servants became confused and even concerned as his needs were taken into his own hands, and the lovely women were left to wonder what they had done to displease him and evict them from his bed. Only two knew and understood; Jassine, who became a mutual servant between two that had built up walls between each other, and Chilanu, who knew her elder brother better than anyone could possibly believe. Long nights passed as obsession brewed in his mind, leaving him to create fantasies of what he believed would soon come to pass.

Daylight did not bring solace. He was used to everyone on his lands paying him mind with respect and flattery. Katja was the only one who did not seek to stroke his ego, avoiding him when she could possibly manage it, and barely speaking to him even when forced. He wondered if his words had been too harsh, a thought that had never crossed his mind with any woman but his own sister, and if he had frightened her into some little shell that no one could pull her from. No one, it seemed, like him.

She cured her curiosity by learning, joining servants in the kitchens to watch food being made before eventually asking if she could learn. Jassine became aware of Ageron's presence during these moments of innocence, where he would watch as Katja learned to make bread and how to properly cut meat. Her laughter cut him, and the Ayera knew that, deep in some part of him, he wanted to be the one that made her smile and grin. He simply didn't understand that, himself.

Chilanu was keenly aware of her brother's eyes on the half-breed girl. As Katja became more comfortable and expressed a desire to learn, so too did she end up under the Hylios woman's hand in learning to use the slim daggers and longbows that were favored aside from their fists. Chilanu was impressed by Katja's natural ability to learn, and with help from other Ayera, she began to learn from Katja as well. It did not take long, though there was resistance at first, for Chilanu to take a position of guardianship to the girl, though Katja saw her more as an older sister.

It was an odd arrangement for all of them, with only Katja blissfully unaware of what pain would come. She thought only of the way it hurt when dinner was served, and she spoke the only question that had become routine. 

“Will you help my people now?”

His answer never changed in word, though the tone did. It was refusal out of spite at first, but as the weeks passed, it was refusal out of longing. The hope that, if he could only just keep her there a little longer, she'd come to him. Yet, every refusal, though at first treated as if she expected it and didn't care, seemed to drain a little more of that happiness she slowly found away from him. More and more, her sleep was gained only after she rode out upon Slate's back, and no one but Jassine knew why. So the weeks passed.

-

“I'll be fine, Ney.” Katja tugged idly at the collar of her tunic while the hunter finished the headband-like braid, twining copper and gold threading into the strands while Chilanu looked on, receiving the same treatment in silver and onyx from Jassine. The garden was warm, gifted only a few blessed drafts from the sea that made it over the low walls, and all four women were beaded with sweat. Katja lifted her hands, gently resting them on the rounded stomach that she had been made to lean against. “It's more important to me that you bear your little one safely, and you have a better chance of that with friends around you.”

“Not,” Neyila amended quickly while leaning down to re-thread her needle for what seemed to be the hundredth time of losing it in the thickness of Katja's hair, “that I haven't made friends here. But I have been worried, and Tolismir understands that I would feel more comfortable in our quiet home than here. Having Petra near to help is comforting as well. But I promised your mother that I would keep you safe, and I feel as though I will have failed that if I was to leave you.”

Chilanu chuckled, tipping her cheek against her knuckles as she observed the two. “You are very protective of your family, Houndstooth. It is admirable. How will your child choose when it is time, if you cling to them so tightly?” 

The hunter paused, looking up to the lounge that held Chilanu and the Ayera. “Choose?”

“Their orandst. Their voice.” 

Jassine spoke quietly, tying off thread to give herself time to pick up a second needle. “Chilanu does not understand the way that your kind raise children. Among the Hylios, children are born without gender. It is true that some seem more feminine and others more masculine, but they carry no outward markings such as genitalia. They are taught equally, with every child learning fully what some societies would only teach one gender or another.”

Gently tipping Chilanu's head back, she continued her delicate weaving while she spoke. “The orandst is a ceremony of maturity, a rite of passage where the child decides which gender they simply prefer to be. Hylios parents have very little voice in this ceremony; it is the choice of the child, the first choice they make all on their own. In truth, the choice comes simply down to breeding.”

“Why did you choose to be female, Chilanu?” Katja piped up, thumbing a bit of the loose dress Neyila wore between her fingers.

“I wanted to bear children.” It was said simply enough, but the tone behind it made Katja look twice. “Among the Hylios, men and women are equal in all things. It is true that we tend to view other races as beneath us; there is a part of our history that we have a difficult time coming to terms with, and some hostilities are not so easily forgotten. The only thing that we cannot do equally is bearing children. We are aware that we would not be able to procreate without the other, so there is a bit of equality in that, but the part of a male in the breeding process is far smaller than that of the female.

“It is mostly an emotional bond, for a male. For a woman, it is a physical and emotional journey that forever changes you. For the rest of your life, you are bound to the lives that you have given birth to, and it is... different than the male.” Hurt became present in her eyes, and she shook her head. “Those are the words of my mother, of course. I do not know, as I have not had a child of my own.”

“But, you have paired with a man, haven't you? I thought that it was – ow!” Katja grumbled as Neyila forced her head straight again, giving Chilanu some dignity to mask her pain from the curiosity. 

“Do you remember when I told you that there was only one who has ever bed a Hylios male and not become pregnant?” Jassine ran her fingers through the loose hair of Chilanu's that covered her thighs and curled about her hips. “Chilanu is that one woman. She has slept with many men, and none of them have managed to give her a child. These are men who have wives of their own and have sired children. There is nothing wrong with them, but Chilanu's inability to become pregnant has... made it difficult.”

“It is a disgrace to my family. Have you not wondered why it is that I am here serving Ageron, while the rest of my family is absent? Ageron keeps me in his home out of a love deeper than family. He has seen me weep, he has seen my pain. While my family believes that I have simply pretended to bed these men, Ageron knows that what is wrong with me is true and real, because even he has not been able to sire from me.”

Katja let out an embarrassed cough, and Neyila snirked while poking the shoulder of the youngest girl. “Among our people, Chilanu, sleeping with your sibling is frowned upon. Even more so if there is a child to come from it.”

“Ah.” There was a pregnant, uncomfortable pause while the Hylios woman attempted to find the right words. “It is... not forbidden to lay with your siblings among the Hylios, but it is generally viewed as... shameful. That no one else would take you, so you could only be taken by family. Ageron offered me sanctuary when I was evicted from the family home, and I asked him to be my proof. I thought that he, of all men, would be able to give me a child, but though we have shared a bed several times, I am as useful as an Ayera to my family.” Her hand lifted to touch on Jassine's arm. “Not that I see the Ayera in a poor light. Of anyone, they understand my plight.” 

Katja watched a cloud pass overhead, and closed her eyes to block out the sun while Neyila finished the last of her styling. “So, this celebration isn't about the day of your birth, but the day of your... orange dust?”

“Orandst. It is an old word in the child-tongue that means 'choice.' It's really the only word that we keep when we endure the ritual.”

“Chilanu?”

“Yes, Hoax?”

She tugged her head from Neyila's grasp and leaned over to view the regal woman, grinning. “Your people are really, really complicated.”

Chilanu blinked, then matched the grin and offered a shrug. “Or perhaps yours are too simple, Katja. Were there no complicated ceremonies among your people?”

“Our most complicated events were usually weddings,” Neyila cut in, forcing Katja back into her lap and brandishing the needle she had been using to thread her hair. “Students from academies sometimes had complicated ceremonies, but there was nothing that everyone experienced more than the wedding. We celebrate the day of our birth once a year, I'm sure there were some who found reason to celebrate every little thing. We've had very little cause to celebrate these last sixty years.”

“You are wedded then, Houndstooth?” The soot-skinned Hylios leaned forward, allowing Jassine to more easily braid her lengthy hair. 

The hunter chuckled. “Does the wolf marry, Chilanu? Tolismir and I have not been married in the way of either of our people, nor have either of us taken the name of the other, but he and I have been together for many decades and have always found ourselves safest and most comfortable beside one another. In our hearts, we are one.” She helped Katja to sit up, setting the needle aside to begin the second set of complicated braids that began behind each ear. “There are some who would look poorly on me for carrying his child before marrying him. But, it is a new world. I think new rules are allowed, don't you?”

Katja grinned. “By the time I get home, perhaps Mother will have another on the way. I miss her.” Her ears twitched as Chilanu stood from the lounge and moved to sit beside her on the pillows. “I've spent every year of my life within yelling distance of her, and it's just different. I feel like my safety net is gone. If I mess up, there's no one to blame but myself.”

“You are close to your mother? We are not. There are too many children to consider, and so most of the attention is thrown upon the first born and the last born. I haven't spoken to my parents in several years, now that I think about it.” Chilanu's head tipped in thought.

Katja was quiet for a long time before speaking again. “Hey, Chilanu?”

“Yes?”

“That really sucks.”

The Hylios woman sighed, and gently rested her hand on Katja's shoulder. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

-

Night had fallen, and all that existed were the drums. If the heat of day had been near impossible to tolerate, it was a wonder that they now gathered around great bonfires upon the beach, and mingled in close groups that danced and swayed together in hypnotic rhythm. The men crowded in nothing more than loose pants, shoes discarded and long forgotten as the cool air made the hot sand bearable. The women were not much better, dressed in loose gowns that were nearly sheer in the firelight.

Katja was aware that she had lost track of time. She remembered joining the party with Jassine by her side, but the swell of people who had come to celebrate the special day quickly tore her from the Ayera's side, and so she had spent hours on her own. It had not been too bad; at first she had seen children, the ethereally beautiful androgynous children of the Hylios, and they had welcomed her with curiosity unmatched. They danced with her, teaching her the simple steps they knew, but as the hours dragged on and they were taken to their beds, she found herself pulled into the rings of adults.

Theirs was a more complicated dance, and she stumbled through it at first, allowing the women in their festive colors to dip and spin around her while the men grasped partners and spun away into entirely new steps that she could never hope to follow. Then Chilanu found her, and pulled her to a circle all her own, and they danced together and laughed as if nothing could bring them down. There was drink, offered and taken, drunk and forgotten. Katja dimly remembered a warning of Chilanu's about the potent fruit drink, but she could no longer remember the exact words.

There were only the drums, and then there were only the bodies. Bronze and gold, firm against her as she was led easily from one to the other, Chilanu's careful eye making certain that there were none who took advantage of her companion's innocence, but Katja couldn't even understand that herself. She thought she laughed too much as soft lips pressed against her wrist and possessive grabs were made to her waist, but she never knew what it was that made her laugh. She became aware of Chilanu's gentle touch when she stumbled, and the world shuddered horribly for a moment.

Warmth and strength, the easy slide of scandalous cloth against her skin, all flooding her mind as Chilanu lifted her easily into her arms and carried her away. The heat dimmed to just Chilanu's own, her heartbeat and easy stride leading her into half sleep. She was dimly aware of the home surrounding her, of one hallway leading to another, and then the softness of a bed replacing the softness of Chilanu's skin. Her eyes opened as a hand swept along her brow and a cup was offered. “You'll sleep through the hangover. I did warn you, Katja.”

Katja drank, the sweet and tangy medicine swiftly acting to drag her into the warm and restful embrace of sleep. Chilanu watched her, head tilted as she considered her options, then chuckled softly to herself and moved into the bathroom. The party would hardly miss her, after all.

Only one noticed her disappearing act, and it didn't take him long to realize that their guest was missing as well. Inebriated and admittedly a little more past his limit that he had ever been before, Ageron found himself pushing past the door to his sister's room with every intention of courting her into the bed as a favor for his own favors to her. Anything, he thought, to stop the thoughts that were roaming in his head about Katja. To come face to face with the object of his desires in his own sister's bed sent a thousand thoughts through his mind.

Mostly, jealousy. That the focus of his obsession was lying flushed in his sister's bed was nothing that he wanted to consider, but his ears heard the sounds of water running in the next room over. Perhaps he had gotten it all wrong, and her reluctance was something else entirely. Perhaps her desires ran towards women, but that seemed wrong. The way she changed around him, the rapid pulse of her heart when he was near, the thousand things he saw from her in just a moment of being near... it was almost heartbreaking that it would all be wasted on a woman.

He stepped closer, eyes leaving the door to the room that divided him from what could be the only person preventing him from having her. Possessing her was a requirement; he'd been too kind already, and he could not bring himself to give up to his sister. Not this time, not this one. He sat on the bed beside her, freezing utterly still as she breathed a moan, a brief flicker of pain echoed on her face before it was gone and she took in a deep breath and turned her face away from him, a hand beside her head tangling slightly in the loose curls that had not been gathered into braids.

It was too easy. As if the gods themselves had opened a path for him to take, and in his inebriated state, that's exactly what he chose to believe. His body leaned while a hand grazed carefully up her side, and he took in the scent of her at her neck and marveled at how quickly her skin broke out in gooseflesh. Swallowing hard, he nearly murmured apologies as he sought out the ties of the loose halter that barely managed to keep her torso covered, and bit back his groan as he unwrapped her like a gift.

His thumbs stroked the outside of her breasts, teasing close to nipples that hardened far more quickly than any he had ever seen before, and tempted a bare graze of his lips over the skin. He could not stop himself from tracing the peaks with his tongue, eyes snapping shut tightly and his body going rigid when she uttered another soft and quick breath. Logic, buried far beneath his drunken haze, begged him to stop and cover her. Told him that to push was to break the already fragile tower of trust that had been building between them.

Logic was shoved away in a moment as his teeth grazed the taut skin of her nipple and she released a surprised gasp, and yet did not wake. He cast his eyes around and saw the cup left on the nearby table, and left her for only a moment to take it into hand and sniff warily at the contents that remained. The sweet smell hit him quickly, and he set the cup back down. The lyskin would flatten even him for several hours – she would be no different. Her dreams, and she would very much dream, would be sweet indeed... made even more so by him. 

In that moment, every shred of resistance he held to was gone. He stripped himself of the ornate pants he wore and crawled into the bed, settling her legs on either side of him carefully before leaning over her and taking her hands into his own. His fingers slid over her wrists as if to grasp, but a second thought had him weaving their fingers together as he grazed his lips along her jaw and relished the quickness of her breath and the way she tipped her head back. Gods only knew what was in her mind; he desperately hoped it was him, and not his sister. 

Once more his mouth went to her breasts, and he lavished attention on them as her sighs became coo's and then moans, never so loud as to make him think they would bring Chilanu running, but they were like fireworks in his mind, and he could take no more than a few minutes before his hands sought out the ties to her skirt and he cursed the hands that had tied them so well, but he managed. The cloth came off easily, his hands skating over her body, a frown touching on his lips as his fingers bumped over the scar on her hip. 

It was something that would have hurt. A probing touch brought a whimper of pain from her; how often did that simple scar make her want to break into tears? Their first meeting flashed in his head, and he remembered touching the same spot, and how she had gone rigid. Owner of a few scars as well, he shuffled down just enough to press his lips against the knotted skin, breathing warmth and apologies upon it. Had he known...

Now that he had her displayed before him, he found himself pausing. A small fragment of his mind almost begged her to wake up and find him. He wanted her fire, and yet... pulling her closer to him, he leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers, guiding himself into her with only a hand. She was not entirely ready for him, and if he had more time, he found he would have taken hours to get her that way, though his first cautious push took more effort than he had thought it would need.

He realized that he would not be able to hold out long, and all of his focus went to restraining that urge to simply spill. Her lips were no more than an inch away, and as he slowly rolled his hips and brought himself out but for his tip and then fell into her again, she closed that distance with a velvet whimper and sigh, and he let his lips graze against hers for only a moment. A second, quick and impersonal despite what he was doing to her. With her, he tried to reason to himself as sweat beaded along his skin.

There was no hope for him. Closing his eyes only made him keenly aware of every noise, from her precious mewls uttered to the ghostly partner in her dreams to the slick squelch of her unknowing willingness no matter how slow he tried to go. His eyes open, he could only marvel at the flush over her tanned skin, at the slightly parted lips and the look of bliss that took her when he tilted his hips just so. While he had always been proud of his staying power, he knew that this was one battle he would lose, and it amused him that his opponent was asleep and unable to see her victory.

His thumb brushed over her clit as he paused, and he leaned close to murmur into her slightly pointed ear, feeding whatever dark fantasy played out in her mind. Her walls gripped him tight, almost too tight, and he could have howled his triumph when he felt her spasm around him and saw her hands tangle in the sheets, her back arching and pressing her breasts against his chest as she came with such force that it was almost painful for him. Almost.

He wanted her eyes open, to see the amber lit up with hazy pleasure, a cocky grin on him as she watched him struggle to keep himself contained. It was only as he moved to try to withdraw that he realized just how fragile that barrier was, how so very hard it was to make sure he would not sully her as thoroughly as he might have wanted to do to her in anger, and it was a barrier that came crashing to pieces when his focus wrapped around a single word.

“Ageron!”

His climax ripped through him with more force than he had ever felt before, and he surprised himself with the sound that left him as he felt his seed, copious and thick, spill within her and fill her. Chilanu gripped him, pulling him away, and the last vestiges splattered upon Katja's labia as he toppled onto the floor bodily, the room spinning around him. He could feel Chilanu's nails digging into his shoulder, bright flashes of pain amidst the bliss that rocked him and kept him from the knowledge of what he had done.

Her strike woke him, and he looked at his sister like a child who looks at an elder in stark realization that they've done something horrible, and wish only the comfort of knowing that all things would be okay. He saw the anger on Chilanu's face melt away into that same painful realization, and knew that she was trapped. Her hand pressed to the reddening patch on his cheek in an attempt to soothe it while she spoke.

“You idiot.”

“I came for you. I swear, my intent was to bed you, but I saw her. I thought that you and her... I couldn't. Lanu, what am I going to do? Lanu...”

Chilanu's forehead fell against his shoulder, and she was quiet for a long minute before finally sighing and standing, trying hard to ignore the way her brother's skin had paled and horror etched on his face. “I'll lift her. Take the sheets, and the outfit. Burn them.” They moved to the bed, and both of them saw the blood on the soft sheets as Chilanu clasped Katja to her, but neither dared speak on what it meant. The light had gone from Ageron's eyes, and he ran his thumb along the blood before bundling the sheets up tight. “Get one of her gowns from her room, and bring it here. Then go to your room, and think hard on what has happened. Think very hard, Ageron... because what you have done changes everything.”

Ageron had no response as he left, his shoulders bowed. Chilanu ached for him, but she did not wish to be in his place. Her eyes went to Katja sleeping blissfully against her breast, and she made her way into the bathroom to clean the girl. When she returned, the bed had been redressed and one of Katja's sleeping gowns was draped over the end. With some difficulty, she got her into the gown and laid her back on the bed, before collapsing beside her.

Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she could not fall asleep. Not until she pulled Katja to her, cradling her chest to chest. With her chin atop the younger woman's head, her fingers combed gently through the damp ends of her hair, and her eyes closed, hastening the fall of tears. Chilanu wept, silently, and every tear came with a prayer that they were sacrifice enough to make certain that Katja would have no cause to weep after this night.


	7. Chapter Seven

Someone had to hear her. It was all that went through her mind as she gripped at the walls that were becoming too slick and muddy for purchase as the storm continued to rage above her. She was straining to remain above the surface of the water that had quickly filled what she now realized was a trap. None that she'd ever seen before, but a trap no less. Above her, the cat-like animal she had rescued and all but tossed up and out of the hole lay alongside it and chirped down at her, it's pelt dark. She had wondered why it hadn't run the moment it was free, and now she realized it just couldn't, and neither could she. The mud along the bottom of the hole sucked at her feet each time it touched them, small pricks barely even registered in her frantic efforts, but she could tell that she could no longer feel her feet and legs.

They weren't working, and the hole was filling quickly. The edge was so tantalizingly near, a few handspans at most that would have been easy to reach in a jump if she could just get flat footing, but that was impossible. Katja resorted to screaming again, coughing up water that tried to choke her, fearful eyes meeting those of the animal she had saved. The last thing she'd ever save, at this rate. And all it could do was chirrup, as if begging her to hold on for just a few moments more. 

Just a few moments...

Earlier...

She had never slept so well before. Warm and safe in a soft bed with no interruptions, and pleasant dreams. Very pleasant, she admitted to herself, hiding her face in the pillows as a flush took to her cheeks and she grinned. If only her waking hours could be half as sweet as the events that had joined her in her mind, she would have no problem staying at this place for as long as it took to get Ageron to agree. Stretching her body out, she groaned happily as tight muscles loosened, flopping on her stomach with her arm and leg hanging off the edge of the bed while she tried to piece together where she was.

Not her room. Not, thankfully, Ageron's room. That left only one real answer, swiftly compounded by the open wardrobe filled with Chilanu's silver and black clothes. Mourning. Hadn't someone told her that black was for signaling mourning? She rolled from the bed, letting her knees hit the floor before she finally stood and stretched again, ruffling fingertips through her hair to gently undo the braids she had fallen asleep in. Spotting a brush, she spent the next hour fixing her hair until it lay once more in the gentle waves around her shoulders.

She cleaned the brush and set it back down, taking her time in looking around the room. Compared to Ageron's, it was sparse and forgettable despite it's size. One entire side of the room opened out onto a balcony that placed the room, at her best guess, more towards the back of the home than Ageron's. She wasn't sure on what time it was, but there was a warmth to the room that made her think it might have been near sundown. Her stomach growled, and she set a hand on it with a small grin.

“Mother always did say I had a wolf living in me. I suppose it's time to find it some food.” She cast one last look around the room to make sure she had left nothing out of place and then left, bare feet slapping softly on the chilled marble floor. It took her several more minutes than usual to find the dining hall, and upon entering it, found quite the different scene than she was used to. A crash against the door bid her to pause before peeking in more fully, and she spotted Chilanu in the midst of hefting another platter to throw at a smaller, weaker figure backpedaling towards the door.

Katja threw open the door and stepped through, narrowly missing platter and male as both ejected themselves from the room. Chilanu's angry words, strange to Katja though she had been trying to learn, were cut with something else that made the half-elf look at her more seriously. Now alone, the Hylios woman set her eyes on Katja and slumped into a chair, looking guilty. The uncomfortable silence continued until Ageron appeared behind her, and she hardly would have noticed if not for the wide berth he gave her before moving to sit at his normal place.

“I don't suppose it's alright to ask what that was about?” Katja smiled as Jassine appeared, and took her spot at the table at Ageron's left hand without complaint, the Ayera sitting beside her.

The two Hylios looked between each other for a moment before Ageron shrugged, and Chilanu nodded. “Every ten years of our orandst, we are allowed to choose a... game.” Chilanu chewed the word, giving an expression that said that it was not quite the one she was looking for. “A competition, would be more like it. There are different ones, each quite tame compared to how it used to be, but there is one quite deadly. A competition of the mind, the body, and even the spirit. It is so deadly that it is the hardest to have the Council accept, as it is not uncommon for many to die during it.

“The man you saw leave is an ambassador of sorts from here to the main home where my – where our – parents reside. For fifty years, I have begged to have this challenge as my gift. Each time, I have been denied.” Folding her arms, the woman sank back into her chair, eyes glimmering with seething anger. “Because my parents refuse to regard me as one of their own, and thus I have no right to ask.”

Ageron spoke up, his voice cold behind the steepled fingers held to his lips. “Because she has failed in the role she has chosen, she is regarded with great shame among our kin.” His eyes flicked to his sister, and he reached out to touch fingers on her shoulder, a look of hurt flashing deep within as she recoiled. “Chilanu may not be able to carry a child, but she is the very example of a woman in other manners. There is no one as deft with a blade, no one as methodical in the hunt. Yet, for this small thing, she is denied. I understand them. Like Chilanu, they are bound to old traditions. However, I know her to be worth so much more than what they hold to.”

“Why is this game so important that it is all you have asked for?” Katja thanked the servant who set a plate of fresh fruit in front of her, forgoing her normal delicacy in eating to bluntly stab a few pieces and stuff them into her mouth. 

“The one who completes the challenge first is given a wish granted by the power of the Council. As long as it can be made possible, it is allowed. I...” Chilanu was quiet for a moment. “I wish to ask to undergo the ceremony of orandst again. So that my choice, which I believe was made in error, may be rectified. Perhaps I was not meant to bear a child, but instead meant to grant them.”

Katja paused, the weight of what Chilanu implied bearing down on her mind. “Is that even possible? I don't think you made a mistake, Chilanu. You made a choice. Your choice. How could that possibly be the wrong one?”

“It is possible, but very dangerous. Of the... handful that have asked for it and undergone the ceremony over again, only a few have come from it sane. They say it rips you apart in the mind, and if you let go of yourself for even a moment, then you're gone.” Ageron's voice held a great deal of concern. “It is not a light choice. Some who have undergone it claim that it was better to be half-empty, than be full and feel empty.”

“The Ayera feel it, as well.” Jassine's calm voice held a sliver of pain in it that made all at the table look at her. “We feel the pain it causes those who try, and that ache resonates ever after in our minds. It is never, ever forgotten. Those in the Lattice are sent with that pain, and they seek the one from who it came. We try to put the halves together again. We do not always succeed.” Her face was sad as she looked to Chilanu. “It is not my place as a servant, but I beg you to reconsider your wish.”

Ageron swelled as if to release an angry outburst, and was quickly silenced by Katja's voice. “What would you need for your claim to be taken seriously? Money?” The three looked to her in confusion, and she continued more slowly. “If your request keeps getting denied because your family refuses to acknowledge you, then you need to find another way. There is always another way. So, what is it that you need? You are Hylios, and your race has traditions.”

“I don't understand...”

“Every ten years, you make this same request, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you are never given it, why?”

“Because I have no family, aside from Ageron. Which would hold weight if he had a mate and children, but he is only one.”

“What point does family play in this competition?” At their lack of response and confusion, she persisted. “Please, just humor me for this moment.”

“They are the support. In the end, they are the ones to bury you if you lose your life. It is symbolic, in a fashion. If you have no family, you have no support, and thus you have no way to win.”

“Are the Hylios the only ones allowed to participate in this game?”

“No.” This time, it was Jassine who continued. “Traditionally, only the two oldest races lay claim to the ability to request this competition. There are seven games, seven challenges.” Jassine looked around on the table, and gathered a number of items before clearing a large space.

“In the beginning, there was one race. Their name has been lost to time, even to us. It is believed that they were so old, they were here before the earth split to reveal the oceans. Some say that it is because of what came that the world is now what it is. These great masters left themselves a legacy in three races. The Niquani, who rose from the depths and gave magic to the lands,” she set a glass of water in the cleared space, and followed it with a lit candle, “the Hylios, who were born of the earth and give the people strength, and the Ayera.” She set an empty chalice between the two previous items.

“No matter which of the them claims to be the first 'children' of the Masters, it is these three races that have given birth to the others in one way or another. Over the very long years, hundreds of races have come from these three. The Topani are one such, begun with the very early union of a failing Hylios tribe that looked to the magic of the sea that the Niquani held. While the Niquani would not give up their secrets, they did give enough knowledge to that small tribe that would help them into hearing the voices of the earth they were born from.”

“Even the Harpies are children, born from a union of Topani and Ayera. A... Lattice blessed union. The seven are composed of the Niquani, the Hylios, the Harpies, the Topani, the Grivae, the Wuldlein, and the Xalv. These are the oldest of the races, and the ones who have spurred several more subraces from their unions.”

Katja frowned, looking over the items before speaking again. “What of the Ayera?”

Obviously choosing her words carefully, Jassine replied. “It was decided that, because we cannot breed as the other races do and because we are not born on this world, we are not fit to be in Council. We do partake, however, as translators. No other race can do that as we can, and so we are fundamental to the communication of the Council.”

“Any race may participate in these challenges?”

“Yes, so long as the rules are met, each independent of the race that has formulated their game. For Chilanu to invoke the Hylios challenge, she needs a family to lay claim to her and act as her support. Same as any challenger who wishes to enter.” Jassine frowned. “I do not believe I am going to like what is formulating in your mind, Katja Hoax.”

Katja grinned and settled back in her chair. “You might not, but hear me out if you would. On my world, there were many wars. There were many people who could not be responsible. Inevitably, there was someone who would become abandoned. They would have no home, no family. Many of these people died without the support they needed. Some were very sick and needed care. Some were very stupid and needed a voice to tell them not to do something.

“A great many of these abandoned people were children. The cities on our world had orphanages, and the wealthy would sometimes visit and take one of the children and raise them as their own. It's called adoption. We don't try to leave people to die when we can help it. Well,” she amended, “most of us try not to do such.”

“We do not have that among the Hylios.” Ageron settled his elbows on the table, and Katja was struck by how he seemed to hang on her every word.

“Well... another option is marrying into a family.”

“No family will take me.” Chilanu's steel voice was wounded.

“No Hylios family, maybe. But your condition is not strange among my people. Sterility happens often, and for many reasons. There are even couples who cannot have children who marry, and then simply adopt. It doesn't make them any less a family in our eyes.”

Ageron shook his head. “That is simply not how it works.”

“The only rule is that she has a family. Not who that family is. Not how that family became hers. Only that they are hers. Am I wrong?” At their slow motions of denial, she continued. “Then I claim her as family by the laws of my people. My sister. That gives you...” Katja counted off on her fingers, “a mother and a father, a sister, three cousins, a grandmother, and several more extended family. Surely, that counts. If nothing else, I'll stand and claim you.”

There was silence. A long, choking silence with Ageron and Chilanu exchanging looks that could only be described as guilty, clearly attempting to converse without the words being said. Jassine broke the silence, setting her arm on Katja's shoulder. “Why don't we let her consider your generous offer while we get you into clothes. Perhaps you'd enjoy riding Slate before it gets too dark?” Coaxing the confused, and slightly wounded, Katja from her chair, the two disappeared out the door without another word.

“Her plan sounds a considerable bit like what will be happening, should your mistake take root.” Chilanu broke the silence that befell them, her eyes flicking to him.

Ageron grunted and stood, his tone sharp. “Only if you continue to keep yourself bound by traditions.”

“It is not a poor idea. Katja is a good woman, and I've watched her stand up to you. She doesn't play your games, and does not deserve what has happened to her. What will happen to her.” The woman stood, her native language rising as the fight began. It was so rare for them to fight, and no servant would dare enter while it happened. “It's disgraceful among our people, what of hers?”

“There are many of her kind who have children and do not marry. Her guardian is not married -”

“That is not the same. They are bound, Ageron. They will never look at other men or women as they look at each other. The game of cards was torture to her, to them! They did it only because it would get Katja to you. Houndstooth cannot even pass in front of a mirror without shame appearing in her eyes. Katja, who has known fear for most of her life, who has never had the opportunity to learn how to love, is going to wake up one morning and realize something is wrong.”

“I will not take her as mine.”

The defeated tone in his voice enraged her, and she curled her fists at her sides while he continued.

“She is not here to love, Lanu. She is here to make a deal and then she will leave. She will die in this war, and know nothing of what has happened. If a child comes of it, it can be blamed on the evening with no man to trace it to.” He turned to her, meeting her angry gaze with impassiveness. “I will not claim her, nor will I give her what she needs of me. I will have her here.”

“You would watch her people die! Without our help, they stand no chance. Even with our help, the odds are dismal. There are few things that give Houndstooth cause to fear, and any mention of this Legion is enough to nearly grind her nose in it. You cannot do that to them. It would kill her.” She frowned as he turned away, striding to stand in front of him again. “They gave you one more tenath to find a bride for yourself before you will be forced to marry Ulaine's sister. There is less than a year left!”

“I will marry Nesita, but I will keep Katja for myself on the side. If she loses her family, then I will be her solace.” Once more he turned, but he managed only halfway before Chilanu's fist connected with his jaw. Staggering under the blow, he caught himself on the edge of the table, and with a roar, gripped her wrist and pulled her to the table, forcing her face into the wood while he leaned on her with his weight. “I brought you into this home, and I can remove you from it just as easily, Lanu!”

His hands twisted in her hair, her struggles weakening as nails scratched along her scalp nearly hard enough to bring blood. “If you could have managed one child with me, I'd have taken you for myself. I would have turned over the entire world to claim you as mine, regardless of the shame it would have brought.” She bucked, and he did draw blood, pulling an angry growl from her as silver-white hair stained itself crimson at her roots. “I will not lose another woman. That girl has ruined me, and I want to ruin her as well.

“There is no one else for me but her. The proof of it lies soft and disinterested against your back, Lanu. No woman but her is enough for me, not even you. Even you, my precious tanegu, are no longer enough. But the mere thought of her near me is enough. The thought of her here instead of you...” As if on cue, his shaft began to harden with every heartbeat, his body trembling against her back as he buried his face into the back of her neck and bit the skin there roughly. “I have no desire to be kind to you any longer. If loving you gently would not give either of us what we wanted...”

He swept a hand down, forcing her legs apart and her gown up, bunching the fabric against his pelvis as his hand hooked in her soft folds and pulled her upwards until she was balanced precariously on her toes. Her dark skin, a deep shade of gray decorated with the silver markings of adulthood, taunted him in a way it never had before. It was too dark, not the tanned color of another woman's skin. Angrily, he set the head of his length against her folds and, despite her sudden plea for him to cease, pushed forward into her with such force that the table rocked and chalices fell over.

Chilanu's body spasmed with the pain, her mind rocking under the assault and his words. Words like 'useless' and 'broken' tangled with 'unfit' and 'unworthy,' choking off her air as her brother, usually so kind to her, slammed himself home with ruthless abandon, a hand gripping her ass so tightly that she felt the pain as a burn more than anything else. Splinters bore into the skin beneath her nails, and yet the sudden sobs that left her seemed only to anger him further and only make his pace more feverish.

His sister had once been perfect for him. No matter how others looked down on him for what he did, he cared for nothing more than her happiness and hope. Now, she was too loose. The walls he had molded to his length no longer fit as he liked. She was too tall, too strong in all ways. She was imperfect, unable to please him as she once had not even half a year previous. With a sickening sorrow, he realized that Katja had not only ruined him, but had ruined what was precious to him as well. The guilt he felt for what he had done the night previous melted away beneath anger again, and his fury doubled.

And Chilanu cried. As he bottomed out inside of her and hit her most painful barrier, she twisted and clawed at the table in an attempt to get away, to flee from his anger and the pain he simply would not cease. Never before had she believed there could be no pleasure in pain. Never before had she felt so powerless, as the single person she truly trusted all but used her, and for no purpose she could fathom. She begged him to stop, and when he would not listen, she finally lay prone along the table, hoping her lack of fight would dissuade him.

It did not. Ageron merely took matters into his own hands, grabbing her hips to rock her back against him until he thrust in completely and, with a groan, spilled seed into her bruised and scraped channel. When he leaned over her again, the warmth she was used to in those private moments was gone in his voice as he spoke. He no longer requested; there was nothing more than command. “You will accept her offer, and take your place as her family. You will not tell her what has happened to her, or I will make sure you are considered nothing more than a woman below even the Ayera.”

He withdrew, pushing her flush against the table as he did so, leaving her to drip his seed from her battered depths before her legs gave out and she crumpled to the floor, shock searing through the pain in her mind. For a moment, the cold wall dissolved and he reached for her only to watch her cringe from him, the once proud fire beaten into invisibility behind a cascade of silver hair and black cloth. Anger swelled again, turned back on him as he watched her tremble.

Ruined. It had all started with the off-worlder, and so it would end with her. Beneath him, ready to fix all that she had ruined from simply appearing. She would never be released from him. He turned and moved to leave the room, and paused as Chilanu found the ability to speak.

“When did you become so cruel?”

When, indeed. Though regret bit at him for how he had treated her, his response was cold and necessary. “When I realized I no longer had to settle for mediocrity.” Her sob, heartbreaking to him, was muffled in a hand, and the servants who stood outside the door backed away as he stalked past them. They waited, averting their eyes until Chilanu stood and left through another door, and none dared speak while they cleaned, leaving the room without a trace of the assault.

-

Jassine watched Chilanu pace like a great cat caught in a cage, the silver eyes venturing to the window where torrents of rain splashed against the glass in such quantity that outside simply ceased to exist. The storm had come quickly and without warning, darkening the sky into nearly midnight black though it had still a few hours before the sun would truly set. Chilanu had not stopped for nearly an hour, though she had managed to pace along every wall, following the thunder and lightning as the storm raged.

The Ayera woman already knew why. She had seen the way the Hylios pair had stiffened at Katja's suggestion, and had seen the way Katja limped just so. The half-elf had said that it was only her scar that bothered her, that she felt as if nothing else could ever go wrong, and Jassine had watched her leave with Slate, almost glowing. It had not taken her, a woman with generations of knowledge, long to put the pieces together... and Chilanu had only divulged more while seeking Jassine's confidence. Now, Chilanu worried.

The bay storms were swift and brutal, tearing trees up from the beaches during the worst of them, and they lasted for long hours. Though she had warned Katja not to wander far, the prolonged absence was disturbing. It was not like Katja to stay somewhere with no word, and while Jassine did not show her worry like Chilanu did, it did not make her concern any less. Natives were killed during such storms with ease. Katja would fare no better if she were unsheltered.

“You told her to stay close?” There was no hint of accusation. Chilanu's tone was respectful, the words already spoken and confirmed several times in the last hour alone. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.” The momentary pause of movement finished, and she was pacing again. “She should have stayed.”

“It's possible she has found refuge in the town. She does not do well inside walls, Chilanu. Her life has been lived in forests and caves. There is hope that she is perfectly safe.”

Chilanu rubbed a shoulder, shaking her head. “No. Jassine, I have fought in wars. I have known others to fight and die, and I've never felt this dread. This... fear.”

“It is because you worry she carries something precious. You are assuming a role of protection over her, as you have been taught to do through generations of tradition. She is a good, smart girl.”

“This is not her world. There are places even we dare not go, let alone stay during a storm. My brother...” The hand that rubbed her shoulder clasped instead, digging nails into her skin. “He will not be happy.” The supple leathers she wore groaned softly as she took up her pacing again, and the two maintained their silent vigil.

Both of them heard the whisper, haunting and echo-like through their minds. Pained and fearful, it closed around their hearts like ice and clung as the shouts went up in the courtyard. The chair that Jassine sat in toppled as she moved to follow after the taller, swifter form of Chilanu straight out through the doors and into the rain. 

Servants struggled to calm the great horse that reared and slammed hooves down upon the priceless pathway. Submerged in the torrent, the damage would take days to see, but no one doubted that being caught beneath the beast's hooved would be devastating. Slate's whinny had become nearly a scream, and in their heads, in every head of the household, the cry was heard clearly. 

“Help!”

Ageron appeared, swift and quiet, and found himself thrown before he could even manage to mount. No matter the danger, it was clear that Slate would not accept the man as a rider, and the anger that Ageron showed melted to fear beneath the haunting anger that Slate leveled at him, ears flat against a head near black with rain. Chilanu spoke without thinking, stepping in front of her brother with her hands raised, and she heard the cry again. Slate's eyes focused on her, and the world itself seemed to leave from beneath her feet.

She was choking, gasping, crying. Legs numb, bloody fingers clawed at a wall that would give no purchase. In an instant, the Hylios woman knew and understood, and all fear of riding the magnificent creature flew from her as fingers curled in the mane. Slate, Katja's beloved steed and first protector, waited only long enough for Chilanu to find her center and seating before turning and bolting from the courtyard, leaving Jassine, Ageron, and the servants hoping silently that the worst had not come to pass.

The beast she rode was revered among her people. The heroes of her kind had ridden the forefathers of the horse that now thundered down the cliffside road, and though Chilanu had taken to the skyships of her people with natural ease, she realized that it was nothing like that moment. When the Hylios had abandoned land for the safety of the skies, so too had the Echoes and their breeds been forgotten. Now, she wished they had not. 

“Tell me more,” she murmured as she leaned along the neck of the horse, and more words and images pushed into her head. She heard laughter, felt freedom and joy that she had never known herself, and then concern and pain. A blur of a cream coat with pale red spots, a chirrup, and then the words of a girl gone from cocky assurance and calm to that of fear quickly growing to terror. A hole, lightning and thunder, and the ability of not being able to breathe. With dread certainty, Chilanu realized where Katja had dismounted, and where her tomb would be if they did not hurry.

Slate needed no urging, pulling them both through the mists that made up that odd second plane he could run through, the chill of the rain leaving her for the chill instead of what was rumored to be a place of the dead. It seeped into her leathers, into her skin and her bones, and by the time he pulled them from it, though no more than a few minutes could have passed, she felt as if she'd been submerged in cold water for hours. Slate pulled up short, his scream lost in the rain.

A hole in the ground gaped in front of her. Beside it, a feline creature chirruped and paced, edging away from Chilanu as she raced to it but never seeming as if it wanted to move away more than a few feet. “Katja!” Her feet lost purchase, and she slid into the hole, though her journey lasted no more than a few feet. Rocks shifted under her, water rising quickly now that the cliffs were letting their share of the water gutter into the lower land. She aimed for the center and felt flesh touch her hand, and she gripped, following the limb to the body.

With all of her might she pulled, boots kicking at stones to free Katja's chest as she wiggled her free from the deadly trap. Apologies were murmured, and prayers as well, and when Katja was at last pulled to safety, Chilanu found her breathing. Shallow breathing, struggling for every breath, unconscious and cold, but breathing. The woman could have wept, but instead searched the trees while hauling Katja into her arms. The path she knew she'd find was nearly grown over, but the plants yielded as she pushed through.

The halfway house and it's tree welcomed her with shelter from the rain, and with considerable issue, Chilanu managed to get herself and Katja up into the tree-home, the feline creature skittering in after her despite her attempt to keep it out. Settling her companion on the only bed, she left again to attempt to find a way for Slate to join them, but to both their agitation and disappointment, there was no way.

“Go to the home. Tell them we're safe. Come back when it stops raining, and we'll be here.”

Slate watched her for long moments, as if judging her trustworthiness, then threw his head as if to nod and turned away, vanishing back through the trees. Her body now sore and aching, Chilanu scaled the tree again, and found the unknown feline curled at Katja's feet. “I won't bother you if you don't bother me,” she warned, and received an odd chirp in return. “Good enough for me.”


	8. Chapter Eight

Outside the home, rain pounded the wood and wind howled. Over it all, the flash of lightning and terrifying boom and roll of thunder made the house creak as if in torment, effectively muffling all other noise. It was between this noise that Chilanu heard the frightened scream, the scuffle, the yelp of pain, and the curious chirp of the cat. Pausing in her repair of Katja's torn clothes, she stood and opened the door that closed off the smaller room from the larger, spotting the upright form of the unknown feline on the bed... but no sign of Katja aside from the scattered blankets hanging from the bedside.

A few steps into the room was enough to spot her, curled in a corner of the room with her hands clasped over her ears, knees tucked against her face while she rocked back and forth. Chilanu padded quietly behind her, and knelt down to extend the barest graze of fingers over Katja's shoulder. It was as if she had burned her, the girl screaming and trying to curl back into that corner, the old wood driving splinters into skin already bruised and beaten. Katja's eyes, round with terror, and lip bleeding from being bitten in her fall from the bed to floor, sobbed openly.

Again, Chilanu reached out, her fingers touching over Katja's brow and then down her cheek while she spoke soft words of comfort laced with concern. As lightning flashed again, Katja's hand gripped Chilanu's own, and she pulled herself to the larger woman with such force that the impact nearly deprived Chilanu of breath. The woman waited until the thunder rolled past, combing fingers soothingly through Katja's muddy hair, and when she was sure she could move without frightening the girl further, she picked her up and took her into the second room, where there were no windows to let in the flashing light.

“I'm not dead?” Katja reached out as Chilanu set her down on the bed, grazing fingers over bare skin as if it was the first she'd seen in a very long time.

Chilanu paused, biting back the rush she felt as Katja's fingers grazed her nipple and traveled down her stomach. “No,” she breathed, taking the hand delicately to look it over, distracting herself by making certain the wounds were cleaned. “You nearly were, but you are not. Your horse got to us and back in time.”

“I can't feel my legs, or my hands.” 

The Hylios woman nodded, rubbing her thumbs along Katja's palms, fingers, and then up the toned arms. “You dropped yourself into a trap unique to the poachers of these woods. Along the bottom are small needles laced with a toxin that numbs and paralyzes the muscle. They are very small, hard to feel.” She coaxed the girl to lay back, and continued her massage along her shoulders and collar, then lower to her breasts. Katja's breath quickened as Chilanu kneaded the supple flesh, but she made no complaint. “Typically, this allows the trap to become one where the victim simply drowns by the rising water.”

“I was being crushed.”

“You must have clawed into the secondary trap. It means that the one who set it meant for something very large to get into it. Likely, one of the short-legged herd animals that live around here. If the prey thrashes enough, it triggers the walls of the trap to cave in, slowly compressing and suffocating the animal. In your case, I'm guessing you were quick enough to step on the first few layers, but were otherwise trapped. Had I arrived a minute or two later, you would have suffocated.”

“I held my breath. The water kept rising, but I just thought... if I could hold out a little longer...” Her words cut off into little sobs, and Chilanu stopped her tending to sit beside the girl, allowing her to curl around her with her head in her lap, facing her stomach. “I was so scared. I thought that was going to be the end of it, and I couldn't imagine anything more than my mother's face...” Another flash, another bout of thunder, and the fearful breath she expelled nearly tore a moan from Chilanu.

She let the girl cry, hoping that her gentle strokes of fingers along the dark hair and skin of her companion might help soothe her, but she could not sit in silence for too long. “You were warned not to go too far, were you not?”

Katja stiffened, sniffling a moment before finally sitting up, her tearful eyes meeting Chilanu's with guilt. “I didn't mean to go so far. The sky was so clear, I thought Jassine was just worrying too much.” She wiped away tears with the heel of her palm, and left a smudge below one eye. “I thought about not coming back. Just... taking Slate and making my way back home.”

“You made your way for the cliffs, hoping to find a way up that wouldn't put you in the city, where your leaving would be noted and questioned. Why, Katja? I thought you needed something from my brother.”

“I did. I do!” Katja rubbed her eyes again, now looking anywhere but the older woman. “That first day, he threatened me. He told me that if I disobeyed or acted out, he would not only deny us the help we so sorely need, but he'd help the Legion... and then he'd rape me on the graves of my family.” She struggled with the words as Chilanu bristled silently. “So I've been good. And every single time I ask, the answer is the same. It's been nearly three months, Chilanu. I haven't heard from my family, and I've not made even the smallest impact on your brother. And then, I thought that with how you acted when I suggested being my sister... maybe you didn't... want that.”

Chilanu blinked, her anger at her brother fading behind puzzlement as she worked out Katja's words. At last, she shook her head, taking the smaller hands in her own. “In our culture, when a man and woman marry, the families do not merge. I believe this is different from your own people. Instead, once the woman is carrying the children of the man, he will gift one of his siblings to his wife as a sister or brother, and permanent guardian. That sibling renounces all claims on their previous family, and becomes wholly a part of the new family, composed of husband, wife, and child.

“Your offer was much like that, and it surprised both Ageron and I. Our cultures are very different, Katja. What you have offered me? It would not have been offered if our roles were switched, and I understand that it is your kindness and your fairness that lead you to offer it, and,” she tipped Katja's chin up, meeting her eyes, “perhaps you hoped that if you helped me, my brother would be more reasonable?”

Katja's eyes fell, and she nodded. “The thought was there, but I swear it was not the primary reason I asked. You have been very kind, and patient, and I don't think your family is being fair. I like you much more as you are now than I would if you were a man, but I know what it's like to want to be someone else. I do.”

The smaller woman fidgeted a moment, then looked back up at Chilanu. “I... I need to...” She flushed as Chilanu smiled, rubbing her legs together. 

“Unfortunately, this home has not been well cared for, and the waste buckets were damaged beyond repair. There is one outside for... solid waste. I took care to dump and clean it earlier, though I'd guess it has filled with water already, given the storm.” Noting Katja's fear, she nodded. “You would have to go out onto the balcony. This frightens you.”

“Yes.”

“Then I will come with you, and stay as near as you need me to. The balcony is quite safe, but having additional support there might help, no?”

“What if I...” 

Pulling Katja up, she helped steady her. “It's raining, Katja. A little warm water never hurt anyone. I would like to get the mud from your hair and finish cleaning you. When we come back in, I would like to know about your family. About our family. I would like to know them, and meet them. If your plan works, I will personally send for them to come here to view the games. All of that, for a moment of fear.”

Katja wobbled in place, gripping Chilanu's arm tightly as she was led from the room to the front door, her eyes shut tight against the flash of lightning, now not quite so common. Chilanu marveled at how tightly the smaller woman could grip, causing a considerable amount of pain when all was said and done. The first blast of air from the outside made them both jump, and with some effort, they stood on the small balcony and shut the door behind them.

True to her word, she kept a tight hold on Katja as they circled to the back of the home, where the roof gave some shelter above a small bench and cabinet featuring firmly closed doors. Katja's squirming had become full on bouncing by the time she was pulled, reluctantly so, onto the smaller balcony made exactly for the purpose it was now being used for. It did not take long for both women to become drenched, the cool wind driving goosebumps up their skin and pebbling their nipples, and yet long minutes passed where Katja alternated between squirming and bouncing, whimpering her discomfort.

It ended with a bang, as lightning struck and thunder rolled, and Chilanu found the girl clinging close with sudden warmth spilling down their legs. Her embarrassed sobs, muffled between Chilanu's breasts, were hushed gently, the larger woman wrapping the smaller protectively in her arms until she was finished, and some time had passed to let the rain clean them. When she felt enough time had passed, she coaxed Katja back to the bench, and sat her down.

“We will go back inside as soon as you are cleaned. It is important that I make sure there is no damage, and truly, being clean will help us both rest better.” Kneeling on the wood in front of her, she reached up and loosened one of the cabinet doors, extracting a small cloth and a bar of lightly scented soap. The old wood biting painfully into her skin, she sat instead, scooting herself forward and taking Katja's foot into her lap. 

Within only a few moments, it was easy to tell that the young girl was not used to having others tend to her. She yanked her foot away as Chilanu danced fingers along the sole, muttering soft apologies as she slowly relaxed and then repeated the process the moment Chilanu began again. With far more patience than anyone would have given her credit for, Chilanu waited out each reaction and diligently continued. Once content that no needles remained in her ward's foot, she pulled the other to her and repeated the process, coming to the same conclusion.

With the soap in hand, her examination turned to bathing, Katja's breath catching in her throat as Chilanu offset the fear from a quick dash of lightning with a well-placed rub that sent her toes curling, too distracted to consider dashing into the home again as she was only moments before. The Hylios woman continued, strong hands slick with soap working circles up her legs to her mid-thigh before she repeated the motion with the cloth, cleansing battered skin. She did not bother to rinse, but cast a questioning glance up at Katja as she squirmed.

Her hands returned to skin, alternating deep strokes with gentler ones up along the outsides of Katja's legs to her hips, then inward along her stomach and lower, pulling a gasp from the half-elf as she flanked her labia and then pulled away, lathering her hands and repeating the process. This time, she was not surprised as Katja's hips rolled, a low moan escaping. From beneath her lashes she saw the blush, saw Katja's lips move in apologies, and simply shook her head.

Her hands swept upwards, pushing Katja to lay down as she stood, and while the younger woman closed her eyes and seemed to pray silently, Chilanu expertly worked along the soft, supple flesh before her, never once touching on bone in her long strokes that both eased and warmed Katja more than merely skin deep. As Chilanu's hands cupped over her breasts, she clasped the dark wrists and seemed to plea with the older woman.

Chilanu smiled knowingly, ceasing her motions but not removing her hands as she bent over the smaller woman, touching her forehead to hers gently. “Do not be ashamed. I will say nothing, and I promise that what you feel is not uncommon, though it is not my intent. Not as it seems, at least. If you wish me to stop, I will do so the moment you ask me to.” She felt the quiver beneath her hands, the kneading of Katja's thumbs on the inside of her wrists, and saw the helpless expression as her wrists were released.

She settled herself on her knees upon the bench, gently coaxing Katja's long legs around her hips, and though she expected to be touched as was common, she was surprised as Katja's slender fingers wound in her hair, and she was pulled down, once more forehead to forehead, watching Katja's eyes gleam amber beneath half-lidded eyes framed by thick lashes. The smaller woman yielded as Chilanu's hands swept under her, lifting her upper body and working her thumbs over tense muscle that soon loosened to her liking and left her searching out other places further up.

She drew away just long enough to grab the soap, but Katja clung to her as if she'd been gone for years once she returned her attention to slowly working her hands up along her neck. Thunder rolled again, but Katja no longer quivered out of fear. Restraint and confusion, perhaps... but not fear. Chilanu smiled faintly as the girl purred under her touch, and when she felt that she was finished, she slowly untangled herself and stood.

Katja's hand caught her wrist, and she looked down to see the plea there again. Guilt suffused her; a piece of her felt that she would be no better than Ageron if she gave in to that request, but another remembered what she had told Katja not even minutes ago. That it was alright. That what she felt was natural, and not something to be ashamed of. Was it not fair to give the girl that much, at the very least? Years of experience told her it wouldn't take much, and sense reasoned that she wasn't violating anyone. Not like Ageron. She was not like Ageron.

That was enough to convince her, and she swept her hands beneath the girl to pick her up and carry her into the rain, guiding her to straddle her lap as she sat down. She refused to let Katja wrap her legs around her as it seemed the girl wanted to do, instead pressing and holding her knees to either side of her, down against the wood, until Katja caved and sat nicely. For a moment, she sat quietly, massaging her fingers through Katja's hair while the girl purred her satisfaction. Soap ran down their bodies, offering a slick surface for her to easily rub out the last of the knots, and then slide lower to Katja's hips.

She offered no resistance as Katja slumped against her, whispering nothing more than soft words of assurance as she found the twin points on either side of the girl's spine that seemed to make her shiver just a little more, made her breath catch and release in low moans just a little bit more, and she kneaded the outside edges, teasing what was inevitable until the moment Katja begged. Five words in a breath against her shoulder, and her resistance shattered completely. 

Her release was sweet, and different from anything she had experienced before. It was nothing like the night in the glade where she was left feeling as though she had been hit by a kodo. It was not sudden, nor was it gone the moment the crest passed. She did not feel drugged, or hazy. There was warmth, a steady and bubbling warmth like a pot about to spill over, and then it had and she felt alive. The rain beat a steady tattoo on her skin, but nothing was so loud as the beat of her heart in her ears, nor as tangible as the press of warmth that was Chilanu's breast against her stomach.

Coming down was nearly sorrow. Her body thrummed, comfortable and at ease with everything. Ageron no longer annoyed or scared her. The lightning and thunder were mere displeasing memories. Nearly dying? Nothing more than a failed attempt to squish what could not be squashed. She became aware, slowly, of Chilanu's laughter. First in the shudders of her body, and then in the very sound against her ear. Her grin was goofy, almost sheepish, but she held no true shame when she spoke. “I'd really, really like to learn how you did that.”

“I would be happy to teach you, but perhaps once you are better rested and healthy.” With little effort, the taller woman stood and helped Katja do the same, looking her over quickly before escorting her back into the tree-house. She wasted no time in grabbing the cleanest of the sheets from the bed in the first room, and led Katja into the back room with the cat-like creature following.

“That's the creature I hauled out of the hole,” Katja commented as Chilanu gave her one of the sheets. “Did you bring it with us to keep it safe?”

“It came with us and refused to leave you. I do not recognize the breed, but I have no doubts that Jassine will have a better idea of what it is if it chooses to accompany us back.” She traded a dubious look with the feline as it curled up in one corner of the room, perfectly placed to keep an eye on her. “It doesn't like me, I think.”

Katja smirked, and peered up at her companion before tugging the woman into the bed. Chilanu watched as the girl snuggled in close against her and piled the sheets atop them, leaving a cocoon of warmth that was surprisingly lulling. Katja curled a leg over one of her own and dropped her head on a breast, an arm thrown across her chest to curl up near her neck. “You're a good pillow.”

“I think you're still feeling the effects of the poison.” Chilanu smiled and glanced down, coiling dark curls of hair around a finger as she considered the closeness the two now shared. “Tell me of your family, Katja? I would like to know many things, and we'll have time.”

“Mmm.” Katja nuzzled against Chilanu's breast and sighed. “For a long time, my mother was the only family I had. She was separated from my father before she even knew she carried me, and yet when she found out, she stayed hidden away until the day she bore me. Then, she had to fight for my life as much as hers. She's a very brave woman, my mother. I think she's beautiful, as well. I inherited none of her charm or graces, but I think that is how it is with a daughter and their mother. They always seem so much more than you.” She let her eyes close as Chilanu stroked through her hair.

“When I was about ten years old, the forest we lived in became infected. It was... like everything you ever feared lived in every shadow. Like everything so innocent became something dark, that waited for you to turn your back. My mother had tried so hard to raise me without having to know fear, but the easy days of my childhood were forgotten over the next few years, as she put a blade in my hand and taught me everything she knew so that I would be as capable as her. I learned to hunt and bring down animals bigger than me. I learned to climb, and gather food that had moved upward to flee the fear. I learned to skin, to cook, to make clothes and even stitch wounds.

“I realized that my mother was teaching me so that when she passed, no matter when that happened, I would be able to take care of myself. That thought... scared me. I was so young, then. She made certain that everything she knew, I knew as well. In moderation. Some things didn't need to be discussed. As the nights grew longer and the fear became terror, she began to tell me things that had no place in my life at that time. She tried to tell me about love – the type of love given to someone who isn't family. About children, about hope and faith and a thousand things that seemed to be useless, then.

“Over time, I realized my mother was going mad. It was on a night like this one, not long after my twenty-fifth birthday, she just seemed to... close down. She walked out into the rain, and went to a cliff over the ocean. I followed her, screaming for her to stop. I may have seemed an adult, but I was still a child to her. I don't think we ever truly grow up, when it comes to our parents.” Katja paused, her fingers tapping along Chilanu's collar. “When I thought she'd jump, I grabbed her. Your brother scares me, Chilanu. To my very core, he frightens me. But he is nothing compared to what I saw in her that night.

“I fought with her. Like something from another world, she fought me as if I meant to kill her. The fight ended when she managed what was to be a killing blow.” She squirmed, and placed Chilanu's hand on the scar on her hip. “My scream, my tears, my pleas... I don't know what it was that brought her. I've never seen her hold such horror in her eyes when she gathered me up in her arms and sobbed. I only barely remember the next few days, and then they faded into weeks and months. I saw my mother grow thin with worry, thinner still as she gave everything to me in hopes that it would bring me back from the edge I tread.

“I've been afraid of nights like that ever since. In my nightmares, I feel everything all over again and there is nothing that scares me more than the mortality I faced. Even when I regained my strength, my mother never recovered herself. She fought what had infected her, but she could no longer hold of as I grew stronger. While I learned to walk all over again, she learned to close herself off... but insanity took hold. I became the mother, and she the child. I learned to lock her in the home we shared, or I would find her at that same cliff ready to throw herself over.

“I remember the day she told me of my father. She told me that he was a beast of a man, with looks that could make even the most loyal woman want but a moment of his time. She described him down to the little details; the bit of hair on his chest, the scar on his lip, the tattoo on his shoulderblade. I began to know this man although I had never met him and she had nothing of him but the very blade she had trained me with. He grew into this... god in my head. One I nearly grew to lust for when... well, nature took it's course.”

Chilanu chuckled, and Katja poked her before continuing. “She told me that he was one of the cursed, made to be both man and beast in one body. When I expressed my fear that I could change, she merely shook her head and said that if that was within my capabilities, I would have already. 'He was always tempted to change me,' she told me. Yet, despite that I was not of the cursed blood, she knew I was his. Said that she saw him in the way I ran, in the way I fought, in the way I laughed and the way I stared at the fire.”

“Have you met your father, then?”

“Yes. He is everything she described him to be, and more. Chilanu, if I had not seen so much of myself in him the moment our eyes met, I would have gladly let him take me to his bed. He's aloof and distant, and every step he takes is like that of an alpha despite his desire to take the orders of others. When he was close to me, I knew that I was protected and I had nothing more to fear from anyone. Not the world, not even my mother. Most of all, he did not spurn me.” 

“You thought he would?”

“My mind... I don't know why, but I thought that a man as great as she made him out to be would no doubt want nothing to do with a child. Not even a child, by the time we met! How do you try to put yourself in a place, when fifty years have passed and you've only just learned the name of the other?” She laughed, and shook her head. “But he never denied it. When my mother slept that first night, he found me and sat with me. He asked me questions about what I liked and what I didn't like. He asked me what I wanted to do from there, and he answered every question I had with complete honesty. And I realized, through all of our talking, that he was no god.

“He was terrified! And he told me honestly that he was sure he had sired a fair few bastards, but he'd never known them. Their mothers had been whores or slaves, long gone by the time he cared to think about what he may have left them with, and he admitted that his life had not been a good one in the eyes of the law. But then he told me he'd fallen for my mother the moment she stood up to him. And all those things she could see in me that reminded her of him... he saw the things that reminded him of her. He told me that if he'd seen me passing in a street, he'd have stopped me or followed me home. We laughed. It felt so good to laugh.

“I asked him about his change. He told me it happened like most of them happened, and at first he'd hated it. But with the curse came the good jobs, and eventually he found one that suited him just fine. It was not an honorable job, but it was one. He said that every change was like his body was ripping itself apart, but he'd never actually accepted it until the moment my mother told him to change when they were...” Her cheeks flushed, and she released an embarrassed cough, “together. I asked him then if he'd show me... the way he looked at me, I thought my heart might break.

“He was afraid. Afraid that it would be the one thing I was not like my mother about, but I wanted to see. Yes, there were worgen among those we were found with, but I wanted to see him. Just like my mother had, I wanted to see him as true as they came... so he did. He changed. I heard the bones snap and grind, and it was horrible. I saw the pain in his eyes as it happened, and when I touched his arm I felt him shaking, saw his claws digging into the wood of the log we sat on, and then it was done. It was done and I was looking at a man who was half man and half-wolf, and Light help me Chilanu, I would have let him take me as either in that moment.”

She laughed again. “I think that's why I took this... job. At the Academy, it seems so many things are considered alright. I passed by men and women of all sorts in various degrees of depravity, but none called to me like my father did. I wanted his hands on my hips, his teeth on my neck, his body over mine. And if my father were a different man, he'd have given it to me, of that I have no doubts. He'd have let me wrap my legs around his shoulders, around his waist. He'd have let me tangle fingers in his hair, or grip his fur. He'd have given me every moment I'd never had, in all the best and worst ways.

“But he was my father, and he was healing my mother. No matter how much his nature called to me, that would never be something I would claim he owed me. So, perhaps I took this job to escape that and find my place in this world we're all stuck in. I just didn't expect it to be this hard.”

“My brother is very stubborn.”

“More like very arrogant.”

The two laughed. “Yes, he is very arrogant, as well.” They quieted, and after some time, Katja prodded her side lightly.

“Tell me of your family?”

Chilanu sighed softly, adjusted herself slowly and then let Katja curl against her again. “I am the youngest daughter of a very large amount of siblings. That's rather normal among my people; the large families. My mother and father are caring and kind, or they were until I was revealed to be... wrong. My father and I were quite close when I was growing up, but I always loved my mother most, though I'd always sensed she knew what was wrong with me even before I had made my choice.

“Everything I did, I did to please her. I tried my best, I pushed myself hard, and when I began to think about the orandst, I thought about her. How beautiful she looked when she was carrying, how loving she was to us all, even me. I wanted that. I wanted to be that, to have children who would see me and my husband as I saw my parents.” She sighed, and Katja squished against her in an act of comfort, one that made her smile and continue.

“I was in love, the first time. After we had coupled, he was as excited as I. We made our plans together, waited eagerly for me to show signs of new life... but the months passed, and there was nothing. I continued through my cycle after a few months, and it seemed like clouds had set in over happiness. For seven years, we tried. Eventually, though he loved me and I loved him, we parted ways. His family could not bear their son to be paired with one like me. Someone so strange, so... imperfect. When Oriogn left, there were others. I loved them less, and I slowly began to lose hope.

“My mother became more cruel, and though my father never stooped as low as she did, I could see that he was fighting to understand. He could not think of why I, a young girl who had told him herself that she wanted nothing more than to be a mother, would lie about my pairings. He began to pay men to sleep with me, and though all were kind, nothing came of it. Eventually, he urged me to leave, and my mother claimed that she would call no barren girl like me a daughter of hers.

“My siblings turned on me, one by one. Three elder sisters, all with children of their own by that time. Even the children mocked me. Only one did not. Ageron, the eldest of the sons and the first singular child. He was viewed as a god by us siblings, cherished by our parents as the Underdwellers cherish their gems and dirt. He was in love with a woman named Ulaine, and she was a good woman in all ways. He told me happily of the day that they knew she was bearing, and he wanted me there when their binding would be announced.

“It is the happiest I ever saw him. She loved me as my family had forgotten how to love me, and Ageron told me that I would be given to her as the ward of the children. He told me that it did not matter if I could not bear children, I would find love and family where it was only them. Ulaine told me the same... she let me touch her stomach to feel the children kick, she let me consider names with her, she took me to the sky markets to pick out colors for their beds... and I felt whole.

“For all the power of our ships, there are some things they cannot stand against. Ulaine's ship crossed the path of a wind prong, an enormous beast that resembles the dragons of your world quite closely, but they are... ethereal. Like clouds, but a hundred times more dangerous. Our ships are but toys to them, and they are so very rare... we forget they exist. I saw the beast and ran to Ulaine, but the ship was cleaved in two before I reached her, and I was left clinging to the broken banister as the ship began to sink.

“I was rescued, and it was I alone who saw Ageron weep that night. He mourned her and the children for months, would eat nothing unless I brought it to him and fed him by force. Such a bond, Katja... it is like having half of you torn away and thrown into a chasm. You know it is there, but you cannot reach it. You can never have it again. He began to drink, and in those moments I began to push.

“He resisted, at first. I plied him with more drink and... he began to relent. He was never cruel, Katja. Even in his roughness, there was tender care. As much as I needed him, he needed me. We would spend entire nights in every carnal position we could think of, anything to forget the pain we shared, and it might have worked if I could only conceive. Every night, even when we were not together in passion, we shared the same bed. Every night, he would fall asleep with his head on my stomach, fingers grazing over the skin, and I would fight tears until it felt as if the pain of it might kill me.

“Ulaine was his forever-love. Never has he forgotten her, and never will he ever love a woman like her. Even I loved her, more than a sister loves her sister. In most things, she was the constant love that my mother had never shown me. I began to feel that even when he loved me, he was thinking of her... and that was alright. But it made me desperate for a child even more. I never sought to replace her, but if I could just give him that one thing...”

Chilanu sighed, distractedly curling locks of Katja's hair around her fingers. “I know what he looks like to you, Katja. Beneath the arrogance, he is a kind and loving man. He knows your plight and understands it... but he is stubborn, and in Ulaine's absence, he has grown arrogant and childish. It will change as the year passes, and he is married to Ulaine's younger sister. A sorry prize for him; they mesh as well as oil and vinegar, but mother and father tire of him making a fool of himself, especially with me. Mother would rather I was forgotten, and Ulaine's sister will not accept me as her guard. It is a sorry situation, but one we have placed ourselves in.”

Katja pursed her lips and frowned, finally tucking the sheets up around their necks while she wiggled to lay atop Chilanu, her legs on either side of the larger woman's hips while she snuggled between her breasts. “Maybe someone will come and sweep him off his feet before that can come to pass. I'm tired,” she added drowsily, her lips grazing the sensitive flesh of Chilanu's breast. “Will the rain be done in the morning? I want to write a letter to my mother...”

“Perhaps,” the older woman murmured, running her fingertips along Katja's naked back. “I'll deliver it myself to the ship I send to fetch your parents.”

The words made Katja smile, her sleepy response so very telling of how quickly she was fading. “Promise?”

“I promise this, and so much more.”


	9. Chapter Nine

The city had become crowded again. The skies above were filled with ships of wood and glass, the sun glinting off rare metals and colored windows. Celebration had taken to the city again, and laughter was common while food and drink flowed aplenty. Chilanu's announcement had been met with excitement among all the races, and they had flooded to the bay eagerly to begin the preparation for the competition. 

But there were none so happy and excited as Chilanu and Katja, even if their reasons were so very different. Chilanu's surprise at the acceptance of her wish had only fueled the fire for Katja, who spent hours each day sparring and traveling with her friend as she prepared for the vigorous test to come. So caught up in her joy, she hardly noticed the rift that had started the day they had returned from her near-death experience, and only continued to grow as neither girl allowed the other out of their sight.

An entire month had elapsed since the announcement, and with only a few days to go before the competition would begin, Chilanu's worry had gone from living through the event to impressing the family that would be arriving at any moment. Katja's excitement hardly helped, what with her darting into the room squealing and then running right back out. By the time they saw Chilanu's herald-ship docking, Katja was nearly pulling her out of the home, and Chilanu only just managed to mount her own steed – a thickly furred feline that would give any Sentinel nightsaber a run for it's money in size and speed – before Katja as down the hill atop Slate. 

The crowds parted in front of them, some throwing themselves away at the last moment upon realizing that the thundering was not the stomp of feet. There were no shouts after them, making Chilanu wonder how many times this exact thing had happened in Katja's time there. Katja waved in passing to a young man who chased after them for a few feet before falling back and laughing. She reined in and leaped from Slate's back, running fingers over his muzzle as Chilanu pulled up beside her and dismounted as well.

Above them, Chilanu's shipmates lowered a bridge across the mild gap, and shouts rang down around them while Katja fidgeted and pulled against Chilanu's staying grip. As the private elevator came down and shipments passed through inspection, the patience of the younger girl clearly became less and less. A chance glance to the side showed that Ageron had chosen to join them, though he remained away from the pair, as if he felt that he was not wanted. So caught in trying to read the expression he bore, Chilanu's thoughts were brought back as Katja gave a happy shout and pushed into the milling mass of people.

Getting to her was not hard. The people made a path all on their own, but not for Katja. Instead, the path branched out from the lift itself, where a large beast lumbered forward and gathered up Katja as if she were no more than a little girl to be held and told that she was alright. As fearsome as he was, there was a gentleness to how he held her, thick black arms cradling her while his clawed hand cupped the back of her head. Beside her, Ageron had slipped close and was now near enough to take her hand and squeeze it. Chilanu looked at him, and saw awe, worry, and something she had never truly seen before. He was nervous.

The worgen set Katja down, and his body changed to that of a human. Tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome. With a smile, Chilanu realized that Katja had been right when boasting about her father's good looks. He would make many women swoon during his stay, and the resemblance they claimed was there in full. He stepped aside, and Chilanu started as Katja's happy chatter became something of a sob. It was her brother who held her back, but she pulled until both could hear. 

There was laughter, deep and rich from the man and another that made her ache. The crowd parted, and Chilanu saw Katja kneeling before a smaller woman who combed fingers through Katja's dark locks while the girl let her head rest on a stomach swollen near to bursting. Katja stood, kissing the brow of the shorter woman until at last her mother swatted her away and took a good look at her.

“Lorcan, look at her. All of my worries have been completely in vain. It's done you good to be here... oh, I've so much to tell you! I'm sure you're starved for updates.” Her eyes went behind her, and she motioned another figure forward. “First, there's someone you need to meet. Theon, come here, sweetheart.”

Another worgen stepped forward, his russet fur somewhere between red and brown in the light, green eyes aware of every motion that happened in the area and yet focused entirely on the woman that beckoned to him. “Katja, I'd like you to meet your brother, Theon. Theon, this is Katja, your sister.” At the confusion on Katja's face, she smiled and explained further. “Before you were born, before I'd lost my first lover, a dear friend of mine was killed in a Kor'kron attack. She sent Theon, barely a boy of five, to me of all people. I raised him as long as I could, and when I could no longer, I gave him to the caravan my mother was a part of.”

Elenie squeezed his large, clawed hand. “I was terrified when I found out they had come under attack. I thought I had lost him. Then I had you, and I could hardly think of him. Imagine my surprise when he found me a week after you left. Though he was.. .considerably more furry than I remembered. They've both been like this the whole ride, terrified something might happen. Theon, be at ease.” 

The man shrugged, giving Katja a toothy grin before he changed and was simply a man. “I always wanted a sibling,” he said in a baritone that gave Chilanu goosebumps. “I am very glad to meet the one I have.”

“More than one, from what I hear. When do I meet this daughter of mine, Katja?” The first man set a hand on Elenie's shoulder, and tipped the chin of his daughter with the other hand. 

“Chilanu,” she gestured to the woman, and after sending a look to Ageron only to find that he had vanished, Chilanu stepped forward, never feeling more vulnerable than she felt then. “This is Chilanu. I told you about her in the letter.”

“Oh, you did. But, Katja...” Elenie reached out, taking one of Chilanu's dark hands in her own. “You didn't tell me she was so pretty. This hair is natural? Your skin? These markings... my goodness, Katja never told me just how very unique your kind are. You should be ashamed, Katja!” Elenie's smile took any heat from the words, and she patted Chilanu's hand gently. “I hope you will endure my constant questions. I want to know everything about you, and I'm sure you have so much to ask us. I am Elenie, but you may call me... you may call me whatever makes you comfortable, Chilanu. This is Katja's father, Lorcan. This is Theon, my son by heart, though not by blood. Like you.” 

Elenie's eyes went wide, and she set a hand on her stomach, hissing softly. “Goodness, these two are itching to make this family even larger. I don't wish to complain, but I'd love to sit down and rest my feet if I could. Less than a month back in my leathers, and these two take me right out of them again. I've spent more time naked with my legs thrown -”

“Ma!”

Chilanu could not help it. Elenie's bluntness and the twin outcries from Theon and Katja made her laugh, and she squeezed the hand of the much smaller woman before drawing her closer. “I will have a cart brought for you. I'm afraid we were not expecting a woman with child.”

“I'll find one.” Katja was quick to speak up, pushing away through the lingering workers as they brought down the last of the goods and luggage stored on the ship. Outside the cavern, she asked workers where she might find a cart, but most simply pointed to the small hand carts used to tote the luggage along the ramps. With a smile, she explained that she needed something larger, and continued on her way. 

So focused on finding the cart she needed, she was jolted from her thoughts as reins were thrust into her face by a bronzed hand and, at her cluelessness, wiggled about before finally taking her hands and thrusting the hard leather into them. Katja glanced up to meet Ageron's hard stare, and then looked up at Jassine, seated atop one of the large manor cats. Jassine smiled and waved, taking the reins back. “The short one is your mother?”

Katja glanced back at Ageron, her chest already puffing as if to spit some harsh word back before his curiosity was registered. “Yes.” She watched him look her over, and shifted slightly under his gaze as she realized he seemed to be seeing her for the first time. 

“She is very...” He looked lost for the word, searching her face as if it might exist there, “small,” he finally finished. “And large. Heavy. Ah, she'll be delivering soon?” He frowned up at Jassine who, in good humor, was trying quite hard not to laugh outright.

“A few months more, I would guess.” Katja's lips were pulled in a bemused smirk, but she dropped her voice low and leaned towards him. “But... don't call her fat. She's very strong for her size, and very quick.”

“Will she treat Lanu well?”

His concern made her step away, searching him over with narrowed eyes. “We will treat her well, Ageron. Better than anyone she's known aside you. My mother has plenty of love to give, and while she'll complain a bit about being on her back for nine months, there's nothing she treasures more than the children.” Her smile flickered away for a moment, and he seized on it.

“You don't seem to be happy about that.” He moved closer to her as carts passed by, leaving them ample space.

“I am happy. Nothing makes me more happy than seeing my mother happy.” The truth in her words, however vehemently spoken, was raw and bared the insecurity she felt and confessed to. “They'll have two parents, the twins. An entire community. They'll know both parents from day one. All I ever had was my mother... and I know it's silly to feel even a little jealous, but it's less jealous and more... lost?” She shrugged, and puffed her cheeks. “I'm not a child, not any longer. I suppose a part of me thought that I could always go running back.”

They were quiet for a few moments, and before the conversation could continue further, Katja flashed a small smile and pushed her way through the crowds to leave Ageron staring after her. It wasn't long before she returned with her family in tow, Chilanu still attempting to answer questions shot at her from the curious parents and elder brother. At the cart, Lorcan easily lifted Elenie up into the back, and Theon followed his action by doing the same with Chilanu. 

Ageron caught the look of surprise on his sibling's face, and his stomach twisted as it turned into delight and shy acceptance. He narrowed his eyes on Theon, and saw the curious awe there that turned to amusement as the two conversed while the men situated themselves. In only the span of a few seconds, he found everything that displeased him, and jealousy magnified it to the point he thought he might lash out, might ban the pair of men from his home if only so he could spend a thousand more nights with Katja and Chilanu. 

He missed her. In that moment of loss that accompanied the bitter pill he had to swallow, he realized that he missed his sister more than he could have ever realized, and yet, in the same maddening moment, he knew without being told that he had ruined the relationship they had once called their own. Now, he was the third wheel as she and the woman that should be his bonded beyond what he could over hope. He was left to watch, and he had never been the type to watch.

The clatter of the cart starting forward broke him from his reverie, and he watched the four move off down the dock together, while Katja settled crates and luggage into the smaller cart hooked up to a disgruntled looking Slate. Now, he wondered if she knew what he had done. Had the sight of her mother made her think more on being a mother herself? Did she feel the ills, the moods, the cravings of a woman carrying children? Watching her lift cases easily into the cart, she hardly showed any sign of tiring, or of pain.

“You've stopped asking.” The words left him before he realized he had thought them up at all, and Katja nudged a crate up onto the cart with her hip while she turned her attention to him more fully. “About helping your people. You've stopped asking for a long time, now.” 

“Has your answer changed?” She smirked at his silence, not knowing that his reasons for denying her wish had changed, only accepting that the answer had remained the same. With a shrug, she shoved the container further among the others and bent to lift another. “I don't see the reason to continue asking, when it's clear that you aren't going to agree after a day passes. I have faith that you will make up your mind on your own, without me bothering you about it each morning. If I can't convince you, perhaps my parents will be able to reach you in a place I have not.”

“You could still agree to be mine.” He moved to help her load, and while he meant to make the words a jest, he hung on her response even as she laughed.

“With all due respect, Ageron... I don't think either of us are a match. In a sense, you are royalty and I am common. You are pure-blood, I am half. You are native, I am strange. For all either of us know, I would be as sterile as your sister to you, and we both know how your family values children and the ability to breed.” She paused to allow him to grip the edge of the heaviest chest of all, and they eased it into the cart together. “We're too different, and I hold little value on the physically intimate. There are things I want, and I don't believe you could give me them.”

“You don't believe in sex for the sake of sex?” His brow lifted, and he leaned against the edge of the cart while she strapped the items down.

“No.” She was quiet for a few moments, but the tying ceased. “When you were with Ulaine, were you thinking of anyone else? Even with the smallest of things, was your mind anywhere but right there in that moment with her?”

He bristled, then calmed and considered her question, soon shaking his head. “No one else. Chilanu, sometimes. Not sexually, only worry that I would not have a place for her in my family, but it faded when Ulaine accepted her. When she and I were together, it was only us. The world ceased to exist outside those moments.”

“I want that.” She jerked the leather once more, then stepped back and dusted her hands. “I want to be with someone, where the world fades away and all I care about is their smile and their laugh. I want to love with my entire self, and be loved wholly in return. I want to be compared to none, I want none compared to me. You? There is too much there. When I give myself, I want it to be to the end of my days. I want the fairytale romance, Ageron. You have Ulaine, and even if I felt that way for you, I would have to compete with that forever.”

“You could never hope to be her,” he rushed, and instantly regret the choice of words when she paused to look at him, her amber eyes sad and pained. He was taken back as she stepped near and extended a calloused hand to his cheek, her lips taking on a sad smile that made him ache with the urge to make it joy.

“I don't wish to be her. That is a pedestal that is far too high for a woman like me, Ageron. I hated you, did you know?” Her fingers traced his jaw and withdrew, leaving fire behind that warmed him to his very toes. “I hated you, and if there had been an easy way to get what I needed from you that didn't require me to become a toy, I'd have taken it just to be rid of you... but I nearly lost my life a month ago.

“I think that changed me. Chilanu told me things, and I realized that hating you was so... childish. You're still in mourning. You may be forever in mourning, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in that moment for the rest of my life. The moment where I have to hear that the most important person to me has died, and I'll never see or hear them again. I can't imagine that. I don't want to imagine that.

“You're an arrogant, childish man. You think the world spins to serve your whims, but I see it as a wall, now. I don't think you could live through being that hurt again. If you agreed to help my people win this war, yours would be there, too. Your family could fall. The people you love, gone. I can see your hesitancy as fear, and I understand. Maybe it's wrong, maybe I'm way off base... but I stopped hating you. You aren't half bad, when you're not being an ass.”

His mind formed a quip that would not come, and instead he simply shrugged and chuckled, moving to help her ease onto Slate, an action that she refused with a simple shake of her head. She began to walk, and Slate followed along after her. Without anything left to do, Ageron fell into step beside her, letting the silence loom until he could no longer take it.

“Nine months. You said your mother would be laid up for nine months. Is that how long it takes for your kin to breed?” She turned a confused gaze up to him, her head tipped to the side. “That's a long time. Ours are half that, if even.”

“That seems frightening, in a way. Nine months allows for preparation, mental and physical. There are some who are born earlier than that,” her brow furrowed in thought, “I know of none who have made it earlier than six months. A month earlier isn't uncommon, I suppose. How long do your kind live, Ageron?”

“My father is four hundred years old. My mother, a little less. They are reaching old age, perhaps another hundred years or so. I would be considered middle age, at almost two hundred.” He glanced at her, his lips pursed. “I would guess you to be in your twenties. Just mature.”

She laughed, and shook her head. “In my fifties, actually. Were I fully human, I'd look more the part. It's the elven blood that keeps me looking young. I'll live, should I survive the impending doom lingering over our head, for another hundred years, give or take. Rather,” they stepped around a pair of arguing merchants with ease, “if I were to pocket myself away and behave for another hundred years, I might live that long.”

“Short lives, few children.” Ageron plucked a flower from a market stall, and tucked it behind her ear, never once stopping his slow stride. “It seems that you are really grasping at straws to stay afloat. How many are there from your world that live here, now? Assuming, for a moment, that I agreed to help your people... how many am I risking the lives of my own to help?”

Katja stopped so suddenly that even Slate was almost out of sight before horse and man realized that she was no longer beside them. Ageron watched her carefully, reaching out a hand to touch her, to wipe away the thoughtfully sad face she had taken on, but he could not bring himself to touch her as she turned and pointed upwards to the looming ships far above them. “Your ships hold two hundred, yes? Manned by twelve, twelve of your most skilled airsmen, but they can hold up to two hundred people at their most full?”

At his nod, she looked to him, amber eyes flickering like dying coals. “Six ships, total. The adults would take up five, the children would barely fill the last. Back home, before all of this happened? Countless ships. Thousands of ships could have been filled with the members of just one race, but we are crippled to only six. The actual fighters? The skilled ones? One ship could hold them with space to spare. Too much space. So many gave their lives to make sure those who could not fight would live, but it isn't enough. One of your ships likely has more power than all of our forces.”

“Your people will die.”

“Yes. We will die. Entire cultures built on survival will cease to exist, and even if we pulled all of those who still live on Azeroth, we would still number so very little. But this is a ripe and beautiful world, Ageron. Those who hunt us would not stop with just us... they would come for everyone here. If it is time for Azeroth to fall, then so be it. I ache to think about it, but it is a husk slowly burning itself from the inside outward. 

“But not this world. Not this place, so full of wonder and beauty. We have come begging for help with a war we will spend the rest of our lives repaying if we manage to win, and we aren't doing it for ourselves anymore. There isn't a single person who believes that going back to Azeroth is an option. Dreams of it? Yes. We dream of it being an option, but we came here and we brought this on you as well. We're fighting for you as well as for us. We'll die for you, as well as for us.”

Her eyes turned away from the ships and towards the water, a hand rubbing at her neck. “Before I left the Academy, I saw so many relaxing and making love. It made me uncomfortable, because I had never had that option before. It seemed... as if they were trying to just forget that a world burned. We don't have children in litters, Ageron. Twins are rare, triplets nearly unheard of. One child, and carrying a child can be life-threatening. When my mother and I were brought to the camp, seven women died in labor while we lived there, and so did the children.

“This is it.” She said it simply, but he bristled at the defeated tone in her voice, hidden beneath a veneer of strength. “I'm giving it another shot, a month or two more, and then I'll leave here. I won't go home, though. I'll find others. I'll try to convince others to help, try to turn their eyes to the danger, and if they won't help, then I'll keep looking.” Her eyes turned to him, and she simply watched without a moment of guilt or shame pressed upon him. “Thank you, Ageron. I heard enough before I came to know that these months I have been with you are more than you've allowed anyone else to linger. You've given me a home, a safe place to rest my head and collect my thoughts. You've given me a place to grow.

“For that, I hold nothing but a deep feeling of gratitude to you and yours. No matter if you choose to help my kin or not, no matter what it is that helps you make your choice, it is my thanks that I want to give you for even listening. It hasn't been easy for either of us, but you've proven a better person than I once believed you to be.” She turned away again, and was out of his reach when his words spilled from him without restraint.

“If I asked you to stay here, would you?” He felt as though he was young again, asking a timeless question and hanging on everything that could be said. “If I asked you to stay here in my home as my companion, as an adviser to me on behalf of your people, would you do it? Nothing more than that. No harm, no force... nothing more than your company and your wit. If I could give you everything you want and need, would you consider it for even a moment?”

She paused and looked back at him, and in her eyes he saw the answer she would not say for fear of wounding him. He sighed and shook his head, smiling a brief though sad smile, and strode up beside her, looping an arm in hers to guide her through the crowds. Slate clopped after them, but they spoke no more, both lost to their own thoughts.

-

Evening came. Katja had long since been released from her family duties, as her attention was clearly on those who were arriving more than those that she knew. Elenie had huffed about it for only an hour before she was distracted by Chilanu, who had taken up Katja's position quite easily. The family loved her, and treated her as though she were born to them. Except for one, though he was no less polite than the others. If anything, he was kinder and gentler, fetching things for Chilanu before she could even think of asking for them. They had bonded quickly, laughing together while Elenie and Lorcan looked on with pride in their eyes.

Chilanu hummed to herself, her damp hair settling in silver-white ringlets along her flushed skin, her thoughts a million miles away from the gathering masses making their way to the courtyard aglow with lights and music. In her room, she moved in the same ritual as she had for what seemed like years, but when it came to choose something to wear, she paused and looked to her collection of blacks and silvers with a sigh.

It hadn't mattered, before. Her colors of mourning had not stopped her from being taken, and from taking any who she wished. Now, though... now she felt like wearing white. The thought amused her; the veritable princess of the Bay being used like a slave while her brother watched. The thought sobered her, her fist tightening at her stomach as she remembered the day after his break. No, not white. Not this time.

Her hands lifted, and it was as she was working to braid her hair that she first heard him. The slow movement of someone being careful not to alert anyone of their presence, and the soft click of something sharp yet muffled in some manner. She paused, and her wrist was taken gently in hand, rough pads too different from skin scratching faintly against her flesh.

“Don't,” Theon squeezed her wrist and pulled her back, forcing a groan from her as his other hand came up along her hip and around. Her back flush against his chest, he bent his head down until he could speak in her ear, a throaty growl that only just held the familiar voice she was becoming used to. “I like it down. It's like liquid silver spilled over obsidian, and there is little that I have seen more beautiful than that.”

He was large and broad, bigger than any she had been so near to before, and now she understood what Katja had meant when speaking about her father. His presence was everything that she craved, and yet so very much more. In his arms, she stood still, letting only her breath carry any noise. She didn't need to make a sound to let Theon know where she stood, his small snuffles against her neck inflicting equal parts amusement and lust. 

Two minutes passed, and then a third, and Theon shifted awkwardly against her back, his hands moving down until his thumbs crossed over the small of her back, and his fingers touched easily around her front. She turned her head just so, and saw him staring at her ass, his head tilted just a little as if he considered something in his mind. His eyes flicked to hers, a playful grin taking shape on his muzzle, and his thumbs dipped low to gently part her cheeks, sliding inwards until they kneaded at the pucker of her asshole.

“I'm tempted, Chia. From the moment I saw you and caught your scent, I've felt like this is what needs to be done.” He watched as she turned her head away, watched it hang as her hands pressed against the table in fists, and frowned. “I know we're supposed to be family. Even with no blood between us, I know that I'm to regard you as dear to me... I've never done anything but sate myself with one woman or another. Never really cared enough, past that point.” He bent over her, forcing her to feel him near as he released her with one hand and placed it over her own. “It's all rutting, to me.

“I won't lie. I want this. I want to hurt you in all the best ways, but I want something more as well. I want your needs to be the same as mine. I don't want it to just be... rutting. When you look at me, it's like a collar has been slapped on me. Less than a day, Chia. Less than a day, and I want you to be mine. My friend, my lover, my woman...” He growled into her neck, claws closing on her skin until she whimpered, “my bitch. But I won't take that from you if you do not wish to give it. It can be whatever you like, right now.”

He shifted behind her again, and she gasped as something hot, thick, and slick slipped between her thighs. Unbidden, she rocked forward to the balls of her feet, and felt it pulse as her thighs stroked and brought a heady moan from him. He did not stop her as she repeated the motion, slow and careful, bereft of teasing and yet knowing keenly that each moment passed as a thousand teases. He twitched and growled, and she felt something drip down the inside of her thigh as he bent over her, flanking her hands with his own. “Anything I want,” she breathed, and he growled the words back to her from above, his broad tongue drawing over her shoulder.

She had loved Ageron. In her heart, she knew she would always love him, but now it was proper. As a sister loved a brother, not as a man loved a woman. Theon was not related to her by blood, and though she did not love him, she was attracted to him in a primal way she'd never felt for anyone before. Her choice was made in an instant, and she pushed away from him only to grab a fistful of his fur to take him down with her as she collapsed to the floor, her back against fallen pillows. 

“No kissing, no worrying about my pleasure, but no blood. Quick,” she amended as she looked him over, a moment of fear twinging in her stomach at the sight of him looming over her, “as we'll both be missed if we are not on time for the feast. Everything else can be sorted out later, together.” She parted her legs willingly, hands braced on his arms as he lifted her hips and set the tip of his cock against her lips. “Quickly,” she murmured.

She expected to tear around him, expected horrible pain that would normally be there when taking a man without being worked up to it. What she received instead was a burn of pain as her walls adjusted to the behemoth spreading them tight around him, and a not unpleasant slickness that helped him push until he was fully within her, his furry sac nestled in the crack of her ass. Together they both heaved a breath, and he could not help but lap up her neck as her head fell back against the edge of the bed.

“Like a glove, Chia.” He said no more as he began, his pace increasing until he was nearly hammering her into both floor and bed and all sense was lost to her. She could do no more than bend and writhe, pain tangling among bliss as he ravaged her without care as to who might hear her rising moans, and then his hand was over her mouth, and she screamed as something firm and thicker than his length was forced into her, and they both came, muffled into the shoulder of one another.

Chilanu's body was wracked with pleasure, and warmth. A minute passed, and then another, and as the fog cleared she realized Theon had lifted away just enough to stare at her stomach, a worried look on his face. For a moment, a terrifying moment, she thought he had severely hurt her. When she glanced down, the noise she made forced him to jump, an apology already on his lips before her tears fell and choked it out of him.

Her normally flat stomach had swollen. She could see the outline of his length just barely, could feel every powerful discharge as his cock continued to flood her, but it was the swell that caught her attention and held it so, the burn of tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Theon caught her look through his own pleasure, and his fearsome visage faded to one of bestial concern.

“I should have thought... I'm sorry, Chia. I should have asked.” His muzzle pressed against her cheek, and he whimpered softly before accepting her fingers behind his ear, his eyes closed as she finally spoke with the tears choking her words.

“It's everything I've ever wanted, Theon. Now just stop talking...”

-

“It's too tight,” Katja grumbled, clinging to the bed post while Jassine tugged and tied the corset one hole at a time. “I'm reminded keenly of why I would hardly ever wear a dress – oof!” Her eyes flicked back as the pressure released around her, and spotted Jassine sprawled on the ground with one snapped cord in her hand. Unable to help herself, she laughed and bent to help her friend back to her feet, the dress slipping off enough to be easily shuffled out of.

Jassine sighed, and tossed the cord onto a table before picking up the dress and eye-balling the nearly naked girl strutting around the room with her hands behind her hair. “I think it is less the issue of wearing a dress, and more the issue of you beginning to appeal to the opposite gender. Or the same one, perhaps?” Her lips quirked in a grin, and she shrugged. “You are a lovely lady, Katja. There are several who would gladly take you to their beds.”

“It's not the bed I am here for, Jassine. Not the men or women, either. I was sent because I have a brain that I like to use, more than a body that would simply warm.” Katja chewed her lip, curling hair idly around her fingers while leaning against the window. “Yet, I stumble. In times like this, I wish I was more careless. A bit more of a whore, perhaps.”

“It is because you are not a whore that they flock to you. You have told me many things, Katja. You will not find the prejudice of your own world, here. For all the others know, you are all strange, all new. If the Ayera could fight... they would fight with you. I would fight with you. Do not wish to be another, when it is you that the others want. The hates of your old world will linger until the moment they realize that it is all for naught.” Jassine peered through the chests of clothes that had been brought as gifts while she spoke, discarding those that did not suit her ideal.

“You will find that this old world holds hate and fear that would drown your own society. What you ask of one race here, you will inevitably ask of all the races. The Hylios are a race quite skilled in aerial combat, backed by their fearsome physical prowess. They are not the only race.”

“I'm aware. I was not the only one sent to find help, though the others had... different reasons, from what I remember of that day.” Stretching her arms up, she tapped her fingers on the arch of the window and sighed. “Who else would be worth asking, Jassine? Who else would listen?”

“You may be best served asking them all, truly. Should any one race agree, the others would follow for their own reasons and values. The Hylios have an accord with the Harpies; both aerial combatants in their own ways. If the Harpies joined, no doubt the Xalv would. Any good battle would call the Wuldlein, and their agreements with the Grivae would call them as well. You just need one, and they'd all follow. Perhaps not for the reasons you like, but you'd have an army.”

“Not me.” Katja turned, her eyes burning coals in the shadows. “I've decided that this isn't us. This was never just about us, and the last thing I will do is stand up and claim anyone as part of my army. That is simply not how it is done.”

“Then how is it supposed to be done, Katja?” At last, a dress was found that pleased her, and Jassine swept it to her while stepping to the other woman. “You'll succeed, then simply fade away into nothing? Renounce all honor that you would get for accomplishing a daunting task, and then... what?”

“Live. The best that I could. I could teach, or I could travel. I could do a great many things, Jassine.” She allowed herself to be coaxed closer, fingering the fabric of the sleeves as the Ayera worked to loosen the laces. “There is always the chance that I would fall in combat, as well. No point to being a hero if there is nothing left but a memory for my family. No point to being a hero.”

“Heroes bring hope. Bow your head, dear.” The fabric slipped easily over the girl, settling over her with no issue at all. “These are very pretty. You've become used to Hylios garb, but it does not suit you as well as this.” She finished lacing the back and stepped around. The sleeveless dress clung to her, pale yellow trimmed with copper and gold nearly sweeping the floor. The bodice was done in white, and clung to the throat just so. “Tasteful. Your people had quite the eye for simple things.”

“If you speak to my mother, you'll hear a different story.” Katja glanced out the window at the shouts, and took a deep breath. “I think I ate too much.”

“You hardly ate a thing, you goose.” Jassine enjoyed the adopted term, and she smiled as Katja swatted playfully at her. “You're nervous. Truthfully, you should be. This challenge has claimed many lives before, and Chilanu could be one more added to the toll. You've grown close. Can you face the possibility of her dying?”

Katja didn't want to answer. There was no answer she could give that would feel as if it were the truth. “Everyone dies, Jassine. Even I will, one day or another. It doesn't mean I can face the thought of her dying alone. I don't like why she is doing this, but I can understand it.” She turned away, picking up a small chest as she left the room. At Jassine's curious glance, she explained. “A gift for Chilanu. For good luck.”

“I think she'll need it.”

Katja smiled, but they were otherwise silent as they left the room, and then the home. The city was quiet, nearly dead save for the twinkling lights across the water that were reflected from the shops. Jassine led her through the city, turning into the cliff-face where a tunnel opened up into the stone. Flickering lights guided them to an open room that may as well have been a stadium. Jassine continued, leading the woman by her hand down the steps to one of the front-most rows, where Elenie and Lorcan were seated.

Comfortable beside her father, Katja set her sights on the room. To say it was immense would have been an understatement. There was enough light to just barely limn the others, the countless others, who were seated all around. The lights allowed her only enough sight to glimpse those near her – mostly people of the city, Hylios and Ayera. For once, there was no mingling. That alone as strange, after months of seeing it. Frowning, Katja turned her gaze towards the middle of the arena.

The floor was made of black sand, glittering in the light that was centered on the middle. One figure, a man with black robes and hair, his skin as pale as the sand was dark, stood behind a dark half-circle table that was bare of any decoration. 

“He's not a very happy man,” Jassine murmured. “He was very resistant to this competition being arranged. Master Jalom is a close friend of Ageron's mother, and he was not pleased to have to deliver Chilanu's request. Not pleased at all. Even less pleased to find that Chilanu had found a way to make this happen.”

Katja smiled as Theon appeared, slipping in on the other side of their mother with a cocky grin. “How happy do you think they would be if Chilanu was to fail?”

“Happier than they should be.” Jassine sat back as the general murmur of the crowd went silent, and anticipation flooded the room. 

“We will begin.” Jalom's voice grated on Katja's ears, the nasal twang completely unlike any voice she had so far heard. “As you are well aware, you have been called forth for a chance to venture to the Forgotten Island, where you will face untold dangers for the chance to gain something precious. As always, the reward is the same. One request to be filled, as long as it is within the Council's power. No more, no less.

“The Niquani have chosen to with hold their participation in light of other duties presented to them. With that in mind,” Jalom lifted a hand, and several items dropped to the table. “We will begin with those who have volunteered. The first,” he picked up one of the items, and held it up to the light. “From the Hylios, Chilanu Hoax.” There was a murmur of praise from the seated Hylios as Chilanu stood and walked to the front, passing by Katja and giving a passing grin before she stepped into the light to the table. 

“While Chilanu's family tends to look unkindly on her disability, the Hylios know she is a fearsome warrior and talented fighter. They are happy to cheer for her.” Jassine explained while Chilanu set a long box on the table. “Rewards,” the Ayera continued. “It is not only the wish that the winner receives. They will have priceless tokens from each race who participates. A... gesture of good will, almost. Something more, just in case the request cannot be fulfilled.”

“From the Harpies, Summer Wing.” The cheers were louder as a harpy made her way to the sand, her avian talons digging into the sand as the light hit the copper and bronze armor she wore. She settled beside Chilanu, and Katja caught the flick of a smile traded between the two before the harpy set her own gift on the table.

“From the Topani, Jorath Watersplit.” The hall rang with the noise as the boy, for he could be no more than that, vaulted to the sands with his gift in one hand, raising it above his head in triumph. When he joined the table, he merely glanced at the women before giving his gift.

“From the Grivae, Sweet Wind.” It was as if thunder rolled through the arena, shouts interspersed as the Grivae applicant stepped forward. Nimble and light, the palamino colored body of the half-girl, half-horse was painted with white and black. Her pale blonde hair was tied back, and she cantered to the other women, setting something down that drew surprise from all those at the table.

“From the Wuldlein, Talonback.” The shouts were quieter, but no less fierce as the youth made his way to the sand. Black fur covered his shoulders and arms, running to his legs where they faded into the thick fur boots. He ignored the Topani boy, which only made him angry, and set his gift down.

“And from the Xalv, Folost.” The cheering was more of a hiss, quiet and barely heard except to send shivers up the spine of those who heard it. From the far end of the room came a shadow, liquid in movement. The creature that appeared as serpentine and massive, nearly dwarfing the table it slithered up next to. Like the Grivae, he seemed to be half-beast, with a humanoid upper body that changed to snake the rest of the way. His features were serpent as well, though the eyes were clever and all too human. As he curled around the others, Katja saw glittering gems along the massive hood.

“They're all children.” Katja nearly jumped from her skin as Ageron settled himself beside her, his eyes on the gathered. “It's insulting that they would stoop so low as to only allow children and youths to participate. This is supposed to be for warriors and those blooded. I didn't think Jalom would stoop as low as my mother, but it seems he has.”

“What do you mean, they're all children?”

“The Topani boy is the easiest to see it in. No scars, no companion. Sweet Wind is also young, and though Talonback looks to be an adult, he has not yet mated. Not for another few years. Summer Wing still has her young plumage; the brown and copper will become a darker shade when she's mature. Folost underwent his first shed twenty years ago. He'll be an adult in his next, in five years or so. They're all children in the eyes of their people. I don't understand why they would be allowed.”

“That's horrible. Why would it have changed now?” Katja gripped her small chest, frowning up at him. “What if they die? What reason would your mother have had to accept, if only to pit her against children?”

“Chilanu spit on our mother when she accepted your offer, Katja. She found a way around the rules, and that displeased her. I'm not surprised she chose to fight back like this.” He quieted as Jalom called attention to himself and the others, quieting the murmur.

“These are the brave who were chosen by their people. Are there any others who wish to stand forward and claim their right as allowed by their people?”

There was a pause, a heavy moment where all present considered themselves. Their values, their dreams. Katja heard older Hylios behind her talking of how it would be good to let the young try, of how it would be too easy with the young that were already present. Her fingers gripped the box she held until she could feel her nails threatening to bend back and break against the ornately tooled wood, and then there was another sound. The sound of pain and fear, of a mother's most horrible dream come to life as Katja stood and stepped around Ageron. She felt fingers grip for her dress, heard the flesh skid away from fabric as she skipped out of reach and made for the sands. 

“I will.” Katja's voice quivered with the words, and she took a breath to steady herself as she stepped into the ring of light, trying hard not to meet Chilanu's shocked and terrified eyes. “By permission of our leader, Lady Kas'viri Lunarspell, and backing from Lord Loen Tideslight, I submit my name and with this gift,” she looked to her shaking hands, “I, Katja Eileen Hoax, submit my price.”


	10. Chapter Ten

**_Katja,_  
  
By the time this letter reaches you, you will have to make a choice that could change everything. I have eyes of my own in the Bay, and the news of what is going on came to me quickly. I'm only sorry that this could not come to you sooner, so that you could make your choice with more than a few days. With any luck, you are truly the child of your mother and father, and you will do what is not only good for all of us, but good for you as well.  
  
We cannot go home, Katja. Azeroth is going to fall much as Draenor did, and we can do nothing more than gather those we can and hope that this new land will be able to sustain us. If it doesn't, then I hope we will be a horrid mouthful for those that try to tear us to pieces. With people like you to fight for us, perhaps we will stand a chance. Perhaps we can survive. Katja, I am so sorry that this has been thrust on you. Were my own mission not so dire, I would have asked you to go to the Bay myself. Leaders, no matter their age or race, should always do their best to remind their people that they are as human as they are.  
  
I know this has been difficult. I know that you have been run against a wall, and I am proud of how resolute you have been. I must admit that I had my doubts... I suppose I am old enough to doubt, even now. I trust Marric considerably. He was a stalwart figure in my life when I was very young, and he was near enough to another that I trust. Had he not put you forward, I might never have considered you for this. Whatever sort of person that makes me, I want you to know one thing. No matter the choice you make, no matter the outcome of this? You have made me proud.  
  
Enclosed is a letter meant only for the eyes of the Master. Jalom, I think was his name. In it, he will find the necessary backing for you to become a participant of this competition. Lord Loen Tideslight, the Niquani leader whose hospitality I have been partaking in for much the same length you have been in the Bay, has decided to pull his people to give ours a chance. It's only a chance, Katja. I know you have grown close to the Hylios woman, and so it is only a chance. I do not know, honestly, if I could pull a win out from beneath a friend of mine. Many of those I considered friends are dead.   
  
By participating in this challenge, we are putting ourselves out as people of this land. You are not an ambassador of the half-elves, or of the humans. The whole of Azeroth, from the trolls to the gnomes, are one race viewed by these people. Among ourselves, we will always have the split. Perhaps this will make us unique among all the others, who knows? Perhaps, long after you and I are buried and mere memory, we will be a whole new race entirely, forever entwined with those we are making budding friendships with now. One may hope.  
  
I have enclosed two items. One is a gift for you, a pendant of unique make given to me a long time ago by my mother. Should you come to grave harm while wearing it, it will place you in stasis for a few days. A week at most. Long enough for someone to find you and help you, fate willing. I hope you will wear it, Katja. I hope it will protect you as it never needed to do with me.  
  
The second gift... I give to you with great sorrow. I know that part of this competition is culture. Every person must dress like their people, they must sit with their people, and in the end, the gift they give must be of their people as well. I am saddened that we lost so much, and have already given most of what we managed to scrape through to those who have so kindly helped us rebuild. There is so little left, and if I had more time... I might have gone back to Azeroth myself to find something less precious, but just as valuable.  
  
You will find that I have locked the second, smaller chest. I did this to keep me from taking the gift back and putting something foolish within. Inside the chest is a bracelet sized just enough to fit on the wrist of a woman. Three stones decorate it... each of these could have purchased entire city blocks of Dalaran in my youth, but as the years passed, I infused them with my magic. It wounds me to give this bit of jewelry to anyone but my own children... but I have none, as the one who granted me the bracelet never gave me any before he passed.  
  
I hope that alone tells you how desperate I am. The last of my precious things, the last of what I came to this world with, is now in your hands. Katja, I wish I could tell you that we will be alright. I wish that I could close my eyes and bring back our homes, bring back the loved ones we've lost, bring back our world. I can't. The most that I can do for you, and for anyone else who does as you do, is promise that you and yours will want for nothing at the end of this... and just in case you make a choice that ends your life, I swear that your family will be well taken care of.  
  
Katja, the choice is in your hands. I trust you... and I wish you all the luck in the world, no matter what you choose.  
  
One more thing. Should you choose to partake in the event, you will need something else. You will be visited by an associate of mine, and given one more gift before the week is out. I know you have your horse, but the Echoes are hardly capable of flight... which you will need. Choose which one will suit you best... it will be yours. Do take good care of them.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Headmistress  
Kas'viri Lunarspell**  
  
“Impossible. I refuse to allow this!” Elenie tried to heave herself up from the chair, tossing the letter onto the small table Lorcan was propped against. He made no move to help his wife, his arms crossed over his chest. “It is one thing to send you to make deals with someone, it's another entirely to ask you to put your life on the line. I did not agree to this. You did not agree to this! Lanu, tell her. Speak some sense into her!”  
  
“I cannot, Elenie. She put her name in, and she was accepted. Grudgingly, but she was accepted all the same. There is no backing out, short of your life ending before the day of the event.” Chilanu steadied Elenie, her fingers combing black hair. “She didn't tell me. She didn't tell my brother, or Jassine. What's done is done...” She looked to Katja, a silent plea in her eyes that was answered with only a shrug and a guilty glance away.  
  
“I'm going to lose my baby. Lorcan, please...” Elenie whimpered as the man shook his head, her plea falling on deaf ears for all it was worth.  
  
“She's a big girl, Ellie. You raised her right, and she's doing what she feels is right. You can't ask for more than that.” Lorcan sighed, a hand moving to rub the back of his neck as he watched his daughter. “Just wish you had told us before you did it, Kitten. We could have given you more.”  
  
“I wasn't thinking -”  
  
“You weren't! You just weren't thinking at all, Katja. How could you do this? How could you do this to me? You can be so selfish, Katja...”  
  
“That's enough, Ellie. Katja!” The flutter of silk was all that was left as the girl backed out of the room and then vanished, leaving Lorcan to give his wife a hard look. “For just a moment, Ellie... imagine those as the last words to a child who has had no one but you in her life for fifty years.”  
  
“I'll go after her, Lorc.”  
  
“No, Theon. Stay with your mother. Lanu, you'd best show me all the things that a competitor needs, so I can have them for Katja. I'll wait at the stables... I'd like another look at those cats of yours.” Without another word, the man left the room, not pausing even for the tattered sob his wife gave. Exchanging a quick glance with Theon, Chilanu followed him out only to find herself alone in the hallway.  
  
Alone for a few moments, at least. She heard Ageron before she could see him, the slap of his bare feet on the stone echoing in her mind. It was too close to other noises, too close to the sound of flesh on flesh, and her stomach turned as she caught sight of him.  
  
“Lanu!” He approached her with his hands outstretched as if to grab her, but stopped when she took an instinctive step back. His hurt could be easily seen on his face, the sudden awareness that this was the closest they'd been since that day hitting him hard. For a moment, he chewed his words carefully. “You know what I want to ask, but I know I lost the right to ask you anything the moment I hurt you. I've hurt you for years in quiet ways. There are things we've done that we should never have done... and I should have been stronger.”  
  
“You want me to talk her out of it.” Her tone was surprisingly cold and blunt. “I can't. If I thought I had a chance of getting her to back out, I would try my best for me, not for you.”  
  
“She could die. The children...”  
  
“You've shown very little care for her or them. If you had given her what she needed, if you had come clean with her, perhaps she wouldn't have gone to these lengths, and don't bother asking me what she wants. For all I know, she wants you impaled on the city limits, your balls strung around your throat. She's doing what she believes is right. I have no place to stop her.”  
  
“Please, Lanu...”  
  
“Stop her yourself, Ageron. Once, you were a man. You fought for Ulaine, and you'd have died for her as well. Somewhere along the line, you lost every quality that made you the pinnacle of this family. If you want her to stay, perhaps you should start being honest to the one person you've hurt worse than even her.” She stepped around him, her eyes never leaving him, watching the way his shoulders slumped. “I can't even promise I'll find her. The island is broken, each place is days apart. The Glass Sea alone can take a skilled sailor a week to navigate. I can only promise that if I do find her, I will keep her safe.”  
  
“You both can't win.”  
  
“No, but she knows why I am going there. She knows why I wanted this. She is a good woman... but I don't know her mind, Ageron. I will not harm her, but when the time comes... I think she will understand that it will be down to who can do what. Who will make it first. Who will need what can be given, more.”  
  
“You won't... hurt her?”  
  
“No. She has given me this. She has given me far more than this, and she doesn't know it. For her, and for the possible children, I will not ever harm her. But it is a competition, Ageron. She knows this as well as I.”   
  
“If she dies...”  
  
“I'll find her corpse myself, Ageron. Now go. You are my brother, but I don't want you near me. Not so close, never so close.”  
  
“I deserve that. I hardly deserve anything else.”  
  
“Don't make this about you!” She flung herself at him, her nails scratching across his cheek as he whirled to catch her wrist. “This has never been about you.”  
  
“No, it has not.” He released her as soon as she was aware he was touching her. “And I do not say what I say out of self-pity. You, Chilanu, were never mediocre. When I fell, you were there to catch me. When I became weak, you were my strength. You have been a voice of reason to me for many years... and I loved you. I would have taken you as mine, but it simply isn't possible. It never was. From you, I deserve nothing but the favors you have granted me out of your love for me. For those, I thank you. They will be the last I ever ask of you. Except this one, for you.”  
  
Chilanu frowned, uncertainty keeping her tongue stilled as her brother fished in a pouch on his hip and brought out a simple, though finely made, metal band. “I don't understand.”  
  
He took her hand, unfolding quivering fingertips to press the ring carefully to her palm. “I've seen the way you look at him. I saw the way you were near him when you were coming into the Chamber, and I saw the way you looked when you had to part from him. More than that, I saw the way he looked at you. It was like looking at Ulaine and myself, or all the ways that people said we were like. If that is what joy or love looks like, then I wish it all for you. This,” he pushed the ring harder into her hand, “is something special to them. We have our ceremonies, and they have theirs. This is part of theirs, though I know little more than that.”  
  
“You're giving me permission?” She turned the ring over in her hand, confused.  
  
“I think that's part of their custom, too. Or, you're to ask... the Ayera wasn't very clear. Some ceremonies are a little more confusing than others. I just... I just want you happy, Lanu. That's all I've ever wanted. If it can't be with me, then make it a happiness with someone who can give you everything you want.” He curled her fingers around the ring and stepped away. “As for me, I need a drink or twelve. Good night, Lanu.”  
  


-

  
“I've heard that there is a goddess of the moon where you come from. I have heard a great many things of your home, but I haven't heard that the women enjoy throwing a kink in the plan of things.” The voice uttered a soft, musical laugh, and then there was quiet. Weight settled beside her, warm skin pressing against skin revealed through ripped skirts, and something warm was settled over her shoulders. “You created quite the stir, doing what you did. They'll be talking about it for years to come.”  
  
“I'm glad someone enjoyed it.” Katja uncurled herself as she warmed, but did not bring her face up. “It seems like it has only caused trouble beyond measure for everyone. I don't even know what I was doing.”  
  
“I would assume it was what you believed was the best for everyone. Contrary to what most would believe, you are hardly stupid or impulsive. Well, perhaps not stupid. After all, it was impulse that helped you rescue me, was it not?”  
  
“Rescue? I haven't rescued anyone...”  
  
“Are you quite certain? You haven't even looked at me.”  
  
“I...” Katja peered up, her eyes widening as comprehension dawned. “You!”  
  
“Yes, me.” The dark-skinned woman seemed to devour the moonlight rather than reflect it, but her mature and pretty features were arm and inviting. Beneath the fur cloak they now shared, she was dressed in the same white garments that Katja could remember from the beach those weeks ago. “You rescued me, and started another string weaving. How does it feel, to be so important?”  
  
“I'd rather not talk about it.” She sighed and unfolded herself completely, throwing her legs over the edge of the precipice she had perched upon, her eyes traveling out to sea. “I know everyone wants to talk about it, but I don't. I didn't even do it out of a desire to do something right. I just...”  
  
“Jumped without looking?” The woman smirked, and shuffled into the same position her companion was holding. “Not a horrible thing to do, Katja of Azeroth. The question now, the only important question, is what you will do when you win this event.”  
  
“I don't plan on winning it.”  
  
“Then you have yourself in quite the predicament, don't you?” Warm fingers touched on the crook of her elbow, and the two looked at eachother. “My father, long dead as he is, once said that those who have no goal, have no desire. If you were to win, you could have anything. Money, power, whatever you wished to the end of your days. Yet, you would put yourself in danger for nothing? Think, silly girl.”  
  
The chiding grated enough to will a response from the half-breed. “I'd force Ageron to give me people to save us. I'd force him to fight.”  
  
“There we go. Interesting words that you use, though. Are you a woman capable of forcing anyone to do anything?”  
  
“I want to believe that I am.”  
  
“Could you force me to walk off this cliff?”  
  
Katja looked her over again, her lips pursed. After a few moments, she met the other woman's eyes and shook her head. “No. You have a stronger will than I do. I'm not sure much of anything could force you to do anything.”  
  
The woman laughed. “In that, you are correct. Now, ask me to walk off the cliff.”  
  
“No!” She flinched away from the woman, shock clear on her features. “You would die! No one could survive a drop like that.”  
  
“See? I cannot force you to do something, but it has nothing to do with will. You are logical, and cunning. Quick to anger, but an extremely fast thinker. You were raised in a harsh environment despite the love your mother showed you. Now, I will ask you: Would you ask me to walk off this cliff?”  
  
At Katja's confused look, she smiled again. “And there is the curiosity that makes you so unique among so many. You now wonder why I am so determined to get you to force me off this cliff. You know, logically, that the drop would kill any person who tried. To ask for a death sentence is likely not uncommon in the age you were raised in, but here is a realm of health and prosperity. I can see it eating at you, Katja.”  
  
“You won't die. Either you're bluffing and I'm to call your bluff, or you simply won't die.” Katja frowned. “That's not a fair game to play, but by the grin you have...” Her lips pulled in a grin. “Stranger, would you walk off this cliff?”  
  
“To prove a point, I will.” Despite Katja's look, the woman stood gracefully and stepped out into the open air. The sound Katja uttered was hardly human, but it was nothing compared to the moment of quiet shock as the woman simply hung there, hovering a foot away from safety. “When you ask, you are bound to get better results. You were right, of course. I would not die, but the fear you felt at the moment of my stepping out was very real, was it not?”  
  
Katja nodded, leaning forward to poke at the air beneath the woman's feet. “I feel as though you've done this before.”  
  
“Oh, I have.” Her voice held a tinge of sadness as she stepped back to her companion and sat, snuggling beneath the furred cloak. “Many, many times. It was my life, once, to weave the threads. For my sisters, it was their duty to measure and then cut the threads I wove. On this world, those threads we once wove mean very little... but there was a time we were sought out, and there was a time where we would guide those who needed it. Once.  
  
“But that world is old and dead, now. Our skills have taken on new shape, and there will come a time when we are sought out for much darker things. The problem with immortality is that, eventually, you become something else entirely. But!” She clapped a hand to Katja's knee and squeezed. “You aren't immortal, and you certainly don't have years to make this choice. Would you like me to offer you an opinion?”  
  
Katja frowned slightly, her eyes going back to the sea, but she nodded anyway.   
  
“Should you make it first and take the win for yourself, there are two things you must remember. Two things you should remember, at least. The first is that Ageron is not the wall that you think he is. The second is that you should always ask, never force. This world holds many things to be feared, do not make yourself one more.” The mysterious woman tapped her lips in thought. “A third piece, as payment for the rescue you gave me unknowingly – show them what you fear, and make them live it as none could wish to live it again.”  
  
“You're speaking in riddles.”  
  
“Katja, child. I'm a mysterious woman speaking to you on a cliff. Riddles are the least of your problems. I can't give you any more than what I tell you the first time.” The woman smiled, and gestured behind her. “Of course, there is the matter of those.”  
  
“Of what?” Katja turned, her eyes going wide. “They hardly made a sound!”  
  
“Correction,” the woman helped the younger girl to her feet, sweeping dirt and grass from her skirts as she all but floated towards the three waiting beasts. Her fingers danced lightly over the feathers of the closest. “ You simply weren't listening. I was wandering down a path when I came across a woman and her mate in distress. It turns out she was meant to deliver these to her niece, but the little one inside her decided it was time to come.”  
  
“Niece... Neyila! Please, tell me she is alright.”  
  
“She is well, as is her child. A lovely, strong boy that they have yet to name. She would have brought them herself, but birthing is so very difficult on even the strongest woman, and I felt it best to let her have time with her youngling and mate. Besides that, I did want to thank you. So, I brought them here for you to choose. From what I understand, you are to pick one, and the other two are to be gifts for your... hosts.” She clapped her hands as if delighted, turning to face Katja. “Enlighten me on the breeds.”  
  
“Dragon,” Katja commented, gesturing to the one that stood furthest. “They belong to my world only by the strain of their father, from what I remember. Their hide is like rough leather, and ripples with iridescence when it comes into contact with magic. We called them Nether Drakes, but there were thought to be only a handful left after Draenor finally obliterated itself. I've only seen a few in my lifetime... this one is young. My mother claimed that her mother has one, or had one, that takes the shape of an elven man in her company. They are said to be very loyal.  
  
“This one, this one is a hippogryph. The front of a bird, the horns of a stag, and the hind-quarters of a horse.” Warily, her fingers touched on the fine blue and purple plumage, drawing a musical croon from the beast. “A kaldorei mount, from what I remember. I've never seen one, I know it only by the stories.” She marveled at the colors before turning her attention to the insistent pushing, a butting of the head against her back that would have nearly tossed her into the hippogryph's side if she was not resisting.  
  
“And this,” she struggled to muffle a laugh as the last beast paused, clearly happy for her attention, “is a gryphon in the midst of a molt.” Though not much larger than Katja herself, the tawny colored creature radiated a sense of goofy play that instantly endeared her to the half-breed. The owl-like tufts of feathers were only two among a coat of mish-mashed plumage, giving the otherwise regal animal a child-like innocence that did not quite match the feral knowledge deep in the brown eyes.  
  
“Ah, I know that look. I suppose I'll be taking these two to your hosts before heading out.” The woman whistled to the other two, who rustled feathers and wings before taking to the skies. “I'll see myself out. Good luck, Katja.”  
  
“Will I see you again?”  
  
The silence was choking as the woman watched her for long seconds, finally nodding. “Yes. One day, if you take this warning to heart. You will be approached by a crone in the end of days, and offered a chance. You must take that offer, no matter how it might disgust or frighten you. Take it, no matter what.”  
  
“I don't understand...”  
  
“Try not to, until you need to. You're a smart girl, Katja. When the moment comes, you'll understand.”  
  
“But...” Katja went quiet, realizing that in the span of a moment it took to blink, the woman and both the mounts were gone, leaving her only with the rustling feathers of her eager gryphon, and the mournful wail of the breeze cutting over the trees.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Nothing hurt like waking up at that moment did. The hard stone beneath her gave a stark chill that battled against the heat of her skin which swiftly died in the darkness. Her body ached with every pulse of blood through her veins, and it resisted as she tried to sit up, hands pressed to her head as if that might keep it from pounding out of her very skull. An odd ringing picked up in her ears, forcing her hands from her head to the tipped edges where she slipped fingers inside and wiggled them in an attempt to clear it.

She knew her eyes were open. Her vision might have been sorely blurred, but she knew her eyes were open, and thus she knew that it was far too dark for her to be outside. As the ringing grew in pitch until it became a single tone and then finally left, she rubbed her eyes once more and then extended her fingers. Her left hand touched stone, and she dragged it around until she met nothing but air; an alcove, but the outside was as dark as the inside. Near blind, her right hand dropped to touch stone around her, and she gripped the leather that her palm came into contact with.

Her pack. Through the clouds that fogged her mind, she remembered packing it with her father. They had laughed, and they had cried. He had told stories and tried to impart wisdom on a child that could hardly listen, but she remembered the things that had gone into that bag. Scooting herself into the alcove, she hauled the bag into her lap and fumbled blindly through it. The water skin and pouch of food were there, and she set them aside as hunger and thirst made themselves known. The hard leather sheath of one dagger was grabbed, the hilt clicking lightly on the ground, but she didn't sigh in relief until the glass orb was in her hands, a dim golden glow growing from within to light her fingers.

The only thing her mother had managed to give, the trinket was little more than portable light coaxed from nothing by the warmth of the one who touched it. It grew until the alcove was lit, revealing the jagged rocks and the cavern that lay just beyond. Even with the warm glow, it didn't seem like enough. Clasping the small globe gently between her lips to keep it lit, she pulled everything out from her satchel. The second dagger, a thick cloak, the darts for a collapsible blowgun that would give her just enough power to hopefully bring down game, a small kit of bandages and elixirs.

Standing was more of an effort than she'd ever admit to, but she was not beyond admitting that she had no intention of leaving the protective alcove until she was geared. On her belt she hooked the daggers and medicinal kit, while the pack went on her back. Over it, the cloak, and over that, the blowgun. Content that she had not been looted, she drank greedily from the skin, washing the taste of dust and something fruity from her tongue. The food was not what she remembered packing; clearly, some things had been changed.

Still, it was food. The growling of her stomach eased as she ate, though it was hardly enough to sustain her for long. She would need to move, and she knew it. Storing the now empty skin and food pouch away, she took a deep breath and started out of the alcove, her free hand touching along the stone walls and pillars that the orb illuminated. The minutes turned to hours as she navigated through rooms and halls that seemed to have neither end nor difference, and she knew only that time passed by how hungry she became, and how much her legs began to ache.

More than once, she stopped to rest, keeping her back to a wall and always looking to either side of her as if expecting someone to come to her aid. While she didn't wish for it, she couldn't help but admit that the company would have been good. The sound of her own footsteps, soon becoming the only sound that kept her company, grated on her in their monotony, and she took to shuffling and skipping. Anything to make the sound bearable.

Hours. Another day, perhaps. She slept, but never enough to become fully rested. The dark became cold and cloying, hanging on her like a cloak that she couldn't shake off. By the time she heard the running water, it was enough to sound like a torrential flood in her ears, too painful to either believe or hope for. 

She saw it, glittering like a vein of gems in solid rock, as she entered the next cavern. Large and open with no structures that she had become used to, the dappled light coming from the roof more than a hundred feet above her trickled through a hole that she guessed was large enough to squirm through, if she could reach it. A quick, calculating glance around the room and a thought towards the contents of her pack told her that it would be impossible; the walls were one thing, the ceiling was another. 

The growl of her stomach roused her from the sudden depression she felt, and she licked her lips with a tongue that felt as dry as the desert sands as she shuffled towards the water. She swore, as she knelt to lower her face to the liquid, that it smelled of all the things she loved so much; rain in Feralas, the sea in Northrend, the bread her mother baked... and yet it smelled like none of them, cold and dead, but so very promising.

By the time she heard the noise, her lips were no more than an inch from the stream. It was a gurgle more sinister than that of anything she could remember, except one. Her mind went to the first kill she'd ever made, the unclean attack failing to bring her prey down in one shot. It had suffered horribly, choking on blood until she could wipe the tears away and finish the job. She had never told her mother, but the sound stayed... and the new one was too much like it. The water, tempting as it was, could wait.

Her ears twitched as she shifted to crouch on the ledge, eyes peeling out the rocks from just beyond the light of her orb. She caught movement, and then the skitter of a small pebble into the light. Another followed, and one more before the gurgle became a sigh, as if the one who struggled to breathe knew that they had caught her attention. Standing, Katja tossed her pack over the stream then followed, staggering on her landing and scraping up the heels of her palms.

The orb rolled, loosed from her hand in the fall, dimming until it died just beside the torn and wretched leather that signified another pack. Blind, Katja scrambled forward until her fingers closed over the delicate glass, and light blossomed again to reveal an even more ragged figure.

The Harpy winced, but Katja could not tell if it was from the light or from something more. Despite her hunger and her thirst, she felt a sudden pang of anger for the condition of the once-beautiful young woman... and loss, for the company she could have been. 

“Summer Wing?” Katja winced at the rasp, her voice harsh and painful even in her own throat. Looking back to the stream, she swallowed longingly.

“Yes.” The word came after a multitude of sounds, each try coupled with a pause as if the Harpy waited for Katja to respond to the language. It was only when she attempted Hylosian that Katja seemed to perk up. “Don't... water.” Weakly, the Harpy brought her hand to her lips, coupling the warning with an action. “Bad.”

“Don't drink it? But it's the first stream I've seen down here... I have no more water.”

“Dead water. Pain. Cause pain.” The Harpy's hand dropped to her stomach, and Katja flinched and pulled back in dismay. “Don't...”

“Light, you're hurt badly!” The understatement made Summer Wing laugh, the death gurgle filling the air between them as Katja pulled her pack closer and fished for the potions she knew were there. “I can help you. Just give me a moment.”

“No.” Summer Wing flapped a hand lightly against Katja's knee, shaking her head. “Dead. Dying. Many hours. Hold on for you. Heard...” She touched her ear, her eyes glazing, “heard you. Waited. Ask favor before passing.”

“But...” The red bottle clasped in her hand, Katja reached for the wound only to have her hand weakly batted away. Kindness raged with the desire to be polite, the desire to save and the need to respect warring in her mind before she finally gave in, recorking the bottle with her shoulders slumped. “Please don't make me watch you die without allowing me to help you.”

“Help by favor. Better chance than wasting supply.” Katja winced again as the Harpy moved, a groan of pain muffled bravely as the goo-ridden remains of her stomach bubbled with her motion. After a few seconds of struggling, the woman made a strange sound of pain, and offered Katja a bloodied feather. As copper as her own, it was striped with bronze that shimmered in the orb's light.

“Take this. When...” she struggled to find the word, trying others in her own tongue before a proper one clicked for use in Hylosian, “contest is complete, give this to my people. It is greatest thing you can do for a dying Harpy. Greatest favor I can ask.” Her hand fell away as Katja grasped the feather, and she heaved a breath.

“I could help you,” the half-elf implored. “These could heal you enough for you to fly, for you to escape.”

“And you?” Summer Wing's glazed gaze fell on her again, and she smiled faintly. “No wings. No skills. Watched you, I did. Thought it curious you would enter with nothing to gain. Nothing to gain, everything to prove. I learned. Not a healer. Quick, agile, skilled with daggers. With Hylios help, you are formidable. You may not win, but you... you will survive. Survive to end, you will be brought to the end.”

“We could both make it...”

“No!” The effort made her gag, and she retched over herself, leaking more blood and clumps of something that Katja had no desire to know of. “I needed to win. I needed it, until the feather showed. Now, feather will do what win could. To use it, I must die. I die with honor. Not as weakling.” She labored for breath, issuing a whimper as Katja tried to help her to sit better, finally cradling her larger upper body in her lap. 

“I was hatched with twin. Boy. Very rare, very fortuitous. Should have been royalty, but he is ill. Very weak. The gift the Grivae woman gave would heal him back to health. Any Grivae woman could, but they ask so much, and we are poor. That is out of my grasp, but if I die as an adult and not a hatchling, he will be cared for... he will be given all he should, and he would rise among ranks.” She released a breath, and was quiet for a time. “That feather is his salvation.”

“I understand. I will keep it, Summer Wing. I will give it over, I promise. You will not have died for nothing.”

“Consider it a boon.” The Harpy chuckled grimly. “You would have drunk from the stream, and be dying like I. Were I trained as a warrior, I would have known. Black water does not exist where we are from. Hatchlings have no need to know of it. You... can take my satchel. There is good water. I had hoped to save it,” she confessed.

“You cannot drink it... but you can swim in it. It will lead you out, if you can hold your breath. There is chance I am wrong... but I don't believe I am. Swim, don't drink. Let current take you, and use as little energy as possible. With luck, you will make it out. There is no other way, for you.”

“Lack of wings makes it hard to do anything but take the sole advantage I have. I'll go, but only once you have passed. I don't think you should die alone.”

“That... is a great kindness. I thank you.”

It didn't take long. Summer Wing closed her eyes not long after her final words, and she never opened them again. Katja hardly noticed anything but her weight, the way she grew heavier and heavier with every breath, and she was so focused on the weight that she hardly noticed when the breathing had stopped, nor the tears that had started. The Harpy's hand had no grip left when she finally tried to pull away, and found it easy until she tried to stand.

Sobs wracked her frame, the few tears she could manage with her dehydration made all the more meaningful as she mourned the passing of one she failed to save. The numb tingling in her legs and feet kept her from standing, her body unable to support itself in her weakness. So she sat and cried, mourning the woman with all that remained. When she had nothing left at all to give, she pressed a kiss to the cold forehead and stood, dragging the fallen woman's pack into her own except for the water.

As Summer Wing had said, it was still full, and the liquid was crisp and cool on her tongue. She tried hard not to think of what it had been bought with, tucking the skin and the feather away safely before making her way to the stream. Now that she could see it clearly, she realized it was much deeper than she had previously thought. However, the rocky outcroppings would require her to wriggle and squirm her way down; her head was one thing, the rest of her body was another thing entirely.

Searching the room for the largest entrance point, she found it not far from the middle. Once more, she arranged her pack, securing anything that was small in larger pouches. Reluctantly, she secured even the orb away, the darkness closing in fast as it lost her contact and was sealed up. Scooting forward, she used her feet to feel the drop, then guided herself over slowly. Touching the water was like dropping into ice, and she nearly screamed with the fire-like pain that tore through her body, silencing her by stripping away the air she needed to make noise.

Clinging to the rocky wall, she counted out her breathing, inhaling deeper each time until she felt she could take in as much as possible. In the dark and the cold, her body already shivering as her clothes became soaked through completely, she focused only on the knowledge that she had no other choice, and that with any luck, warmth would be outside. Bracing herself once more, she dragged the pack into the water with her, allowing it to soak before tying it around her waist and diving.

Below the surface, the current took hold and swept her quickly through. Out of instinct, she curled herself around her pack, burying her face in the leather of her pack to guard it. Her hands were not so lucky, knuckles scraping open on sharp rocks and outcroppings as she was torn through the underground river. As her body began to cry for air, she focused on nothing more than the desire to be free. The will to make it out, attempting to talk her body into survival, a task that was quickly becoming harder. She uncurled as she hit a wall, managing to hold her breath only by clapping numb fingers over her mouth. 

When the current died, she hardly noticed. Dark light touched the surface of water far above her head, and every motion she made felt as if it was made with lead tied to her limbs. She began to struggle, her sight becoming dark as her body cried out for air that it desperately needed as she worked her frozen limbs. Defeat pressed at her mind, and she finally let her breath go, watching the bubbles glisten upwards like malleable diamonds.

Her eyes closed again, and she kicked upwards, felt her hand break the surface and nearly cried out with joy. But her oxygen starved muscles refused to move again, and she began to sink once more, and was barely conscious when hands gripped at her, pulling her upwards. The first breath was sweet, the sweetest she'd ever taken, but she could hardly appreciate it as consciousness fled completely.

-

The crackling fire woke her, as warm as the soft skins she was sleeping on. The fur rubbed against her bare skin, but she couldn't take her mind off the smell of meat. Slipping from the skins, she squirmed closer to the fire, nearly ripping the cooking meat off the spit only to be stopped by a scaled tail flicking out and batting it out of her hands. Before she could react, she was wrapped in obsidian coils, the hard scales cutting into her.

“Where is she?”

“Who?” She hardly cared that the voice was in her mind, but her squirming stopped as the copper and bronze feather of the fallen Harpy was brandished in front of her. “Summer Wing. Stop, you'll damage it...”

“The Harpy. Where is she?”

“Dead. She's dead, please...” Her hand reached for the feather, and she took it gently from him, cradling it against her chest. “I have to get this to her brother. It's his salvation.”

“She gave this to you?”

“Yes. She fell through the roof of the cavern I was trapped in, and drank from the water. It... it ate through her. I found her in time to exchange favors.”

“She did not simply fall. The Wuldlein boy has set many traps in this place. He gloated of her being his first kill, when I crossed his path. His trap did not hold me.” The coils loosened, allowing her to sit comfortably amidst them. “I have been looking for him. I found you, instead.” 

“I thought attacking one another wasn't part of the competition.”

“It isn't. The rules of the game, so to speak, are built in such a way that we should not have been able to find one another. The chances of it are small, so much so that it has only happened twice before in all the years. It was expected. Hatchlings made to compete, all on one of the most unforgiving isles. Death was bound to happen.”

“There were others?”

“The Topani boy was a corpse when I found him. The Grivae filly is well, but she suffered severe injury. I gave her my supplies before continuing. Of your friend, I have seen no sign.” The Xalv leaned, plucking up meat from the spit and breaking it in half before offering it to her. “The first was poison to you. Many things here are. This isle is good for me, not so much for you.”

Ravenous, she took the cooked meat and devoured it with abandon, uncaring of the witness as the hot grease leaked down her chin. When she hit bone and found herself gnawing like a hound, sense seemed to creep in and she looked away from the curious glance the Xalv male gave her. Muttering apologies, she sought to discard the remnants, and had them taken from her.

“There is no need to apologize. You were asleep for more than a day. At least you are well.” He moved, gently lowering her completely to the ground. “Your clothes are on the other side of the fire. I repaired what I could with your supplies. If you wish to bathe, there is a pool just beyond that tree, there. You can refill your skin there. I will pack up your bags once more.” He held out a hand for the feather, taking it back as gently as she handed it over. “It is better to travel in pairs. Should we find your friend, I will protect her as well.”

“If she's still alive, I don't think she'll need the protection all that much.” Katja gave a wry grin and gathered her things, vanishing into the trees.

-

“You speak my language. How?” 

Several hours had passed, their travel taking them away from the edge of a forest and into a wasteland that brought back memories of tales of a dying planet. Over their heads, the sky was blue and purple, dark and forbidding with nearly no light at all reaching them from above. The ground was water, or that had been her first guess when she had seen it. Folost had slipped onto it as if it were ground, and she followed more out of a lack of choice than anything else. It was a flooded land, the landscape mostly liquid with strikes of ragged, crystal-laden rocks that rivaled the Xalv in size. She had quickly discovered that, as long as they moved, the water held them as though it were ground.

“I use your words. You form words with the association of pictures. What I miss, I attempt to find very quickly.” At her disbelieving glance, he hissed a chuckle. “There is an Ayera in our employ. I am a quick learner. It is required of those who may lead the nests and burrows... to know the languages. I speak Hylosian, and was learning your language as well. It has been said that your people seek to become legitimate members of this world. We find it important, so my burrow found the services of a recently sent Ayera, and she has been mentoring us.”

“Why do you not speak as others speak?”

“We have no use for words as your people do. We are burrowers and underground creatures. A Xalv can relay their words through several miles of stone. Words cannot travel that quickly, nor that far. Not without complicated things that we do not wish to have.” He looked to her, bemused. “There were talking snakes on your world?”

“Naga, but not like you. You are more a serpent than they ever were, that I can remember. Most were dead or hiding by the time I was old enough to begin maintaining my own memories.” She trailed behind him, jumping over the end of his tail and catching up once more.

“Interesting.” He went quiet, leaving her to her own thoughts while they navigated the terrain. After so long in the tunnels, the odd slide of his hard scales on the water was different enough to keep the tedium away. The view seemed never-ending, with every rock and pillar just the same as the last they had passed. Yet they continued, and she followed the Xalv willingly as he lead her. When the water began to yield to greater patches of land, they allowed themselves a reprieve, and Folost left to find food, returning not long after.

“Why don't you wish to win?” Katja sucked idly on the bone of the unknown animal, watching Folost as he worked to clean the skin. “Everyone here is here because they want something, but you are well behind the remaining players, with only me as your company. Why?”

“In participating, I have already brought honor to my nest. My father is old and dying, he will survive to my next shed and then relinquish the name to me. I will be responsible for my nest and burrows, specifically the care of my youngest nestlings. Were I to die, there would be no one, and the upheaval would be... unpleasant. I have everything I could ever want or need, Katja. It is better that those who have unfilled desires have the chance, and not one who does not have need of it. We are simple creatures, my kind. We work the stones and metals of the world, and we trade with the other races. In times of need, we fight. We don't do anything to grasp what is not ours, unless we are desperate.” Folost set aside the skin and moved, coiling his massive body loosely around her. “Sleep. We can talk while we continue tomorrow.”

Without complaint, she fixed herself on the finer scales and quickly drifted to sleep. Their progress remained the same for the next three days, with Folost finding feathered game for Katja to make replacement darts for her blowgun. He marveled in her ingenuity and company, and they traded old stories with new hopes as the landscape went from purple to woods, then back to a wilderness that became bitterly cold at night, requiring him to burrow them a den for sleep. The skins he gathered provided more than enough warmth for her, and her warmth kept him aware enough to keep them both protected.

On the fourth day of travel, the bitter cold broke to balmy warmth and Folost confirmed their nearness to the goal while helping Katja lower herself from one cliff-like outcropping to the next. As trees became thicker, she managed on her own by hopping from one to the next, frequently leaving him to burrow in the soft earth to catch up. A break in the trees offered her the first sight of the goal; a tall ivory pillar, aged and worn by time. 

“You'll need only make it to the pillar, then to the top. It is a tower,” he added in, lifting his tail to help her down from a particularly tall tree whose lower branches had been stripped. “I do not know what waits inside. It is said that you will be greeted by a familiar face, one that you will listen to. I've heard others say it is a monster. I must wait for the monster outside. Go. You are so close.” 

“Thank you.” She traded a smile with him, and watched him fade away into the thick vegetation before she made her way to the next tree. She was careful, forced to stay high as possible due to the lack of lower branches, and it was not long before her palms had become scuffed and numbed, soon leading her to lose her grip during a jump and plummet to the ground. She hit the floor hard, rolling into the roots of one of the large trees, and laid there to get her breath back. Beyond her breath, beyond the birds and the swaying of the trees, there was another sound she knew too well.

Footsteps. Rapid and quick, and she rolled out of the way in time to miss the first arrow that plunged where her heart would have still been had she not moved. A second and third followed her movements in quick succession, but the foliage proved too thick to tell who was shooting. Truly, she doubted that the bowman knew and was simply firing in her general direction. Dipping behind another tree, Katja took three breaths to gather her bearings and then bolted, muttering curses to herself as another arrow flew and caught the tail end of her unbound hair.

One more struck the tree she hid behind, and a quick look told her that her next dash would be a mad one against an unknown assailant – nearly thirty feet of nothing lay before her to the next tree, nothing but grass just tall enough to make her trek slower, but not defend her. Breathing a prayer, she cast a glance behind her then bolted again.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet.

Five feet.

Her foot hit ground and she stopped quickly, nearly flying into the mammoth black wolf that leapt from the treeline and launched at her, growling. Teeth closed over her arm, and she screamed in pain as her bones broke beneath the assault. Shaking her off like a rag doll, the wolf circled her, chasing her back across the grass by nipping and slavering at her heels, howling in triumph when she fell and cried out again.

The wolf changed, going from beast to man, and she groaned as he lifted the scythe-like weapon above his head. Too far above his head. An arrow flew again, impaling his wrist and driving him away from her. Another followed, chasing him back into the trees. Her head against the ground, she could hear the bowman approaching, and offered only a weak grin up at Chilanu as the woman knelt beside her.

“I could have killed you.”

“With that aim? You couldn't hit a damned wall.” Katja's quip was bitten off by pain, and she hissed as Chilanu helped her to stand. Together, the two worked to quickly mend her broken arm, taking up the last of their elixirs to seal the bone and skin. “It'll do. Mother will have a cow or two, but it can heal the rest of the way on it's own.” The two looked at one another for a moment, then drew the other into a tight hug.

“I looked for you. I worried Talonback had gotten to you in his madness.”

“No, not me.” Katja stepped back, and grabbed Chilanu's wrist. “WWe're so close to the tower, we can finish this and get back home.” The two bolted for the trees, helping one another down the last incline.

“Who else?”

“Two killed, one wounded.” Katja hit ground hard, shaking her head as Chilanu dropped beside her.

“It's not him. He was bitten by something. We were traveling for a few hours, and he got hungry. I don't know what it was, but he changed quickly. Just... became mad. I escaped him, but he's tracked me ever since. We've been here two days, and he's made no effort at all to break for the tower, he just stops me.” Chilanu paused, looking back at a completely still Katja.

“Where was he bitten? He wasn't like this before, you're sure?”

“The arm, and I'm very sure. He is competitive, but he understood that we weren't supposed to kill one another. Rather, that it was better that we didn't.” She frowned. “He told me of the woman he favored. His family. Wuldlein do not trust that much. But after? No... he lost it.”

“Damn.” Her eyes scoured the area, falling on the door to the tower, where the crouched form of the wolf could be seen. “I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's waiting for you again.”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic.” Her sarcasm was lost on the other woman, who only looked on in confusion as Katja hefted a rock in her hands. “One more mad dash, then.” Without explaining, Katja hurled the rock, pegging the wolf square between the eyes. Incensed, it growled and sprang for her, completely ignoring Chilanu in the effort to get to the smaller half-elf. Chilanu followed, and both girls were breathing heavy when the ground beneath them simply moved and shifted. Katja reached out, pulling Chilanu to her as the ground heaved upwards, spraying the area with grass and dirt.

There was a yelp, a painful sound that made Katja wince herself, and she looked up to see Folost slither from the ground. If he was large at rest, his appearance when attempting to intimidate was not only large, but frightening as well. Talonback growled, his own attempt at intimidation falling flat as the Xalv lifted high and struck at him, teeth bared.

“Go. Go for the door!” Katja scrambled to her feet, spitting out dirt and grass as she started after the angered Xalv. “He's going to kill him. I have to stop him from doing that.”

“But...”

“I'll find another way.” The harsh, surprisingly angry, tone took even her aback, and she knew then that the loss stung harder than intended. “I'll find another way, Lanu. I just want this nightmare to be over.”

Without waiting for the response, she took off after the Xalv and his prey, calling for him to listen. By the time she reached him, Talonback was human again and caught on his coils, teeth trying in vain to get through the Xalv scales and hide as Folost slowly squeezed the air from him. 

“Stop. Stop!” Katja leapt, scaling the Xalv's coils to throw herself over Talonback, enduring a nasty pinch as he closed teeth on her clothes but failed to break skin. “You can't kill him. It's all in his head, Folost. He didn't do any of it. Please, don't kill him. His arm... he was bitten.”

The Xalv paused, reptilian eyes watching her carefully before he lifted the topmost coil and bared Talonback's arms. On one, the site of the punctures was red and weeping, and the serpent hissed and loosened his grip enough that the man could breath, but not squirm. “Understood. Go to the tower. I will hold him.”

“No.” Katja situated herself atop one coil, kicking her foot lightly at Talonback as he snapped again at her person. “I told Chilanu to go. I'll find another way.” Expelling a sigh, she ran her fingers through her hair, dropping her head. “I'll find another way.”

At the tower, Chilanu paused with a hand to the door, the desire to walk away from it nearly making her sick with need. As Katja's head dropped, she pressed her own to the door, muttering a curse as she pushed it open and slipped through, allowing the dark to swallow her.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Inside was worse than outside. Chilanu felt as if her breath would be torn from her if she dared to breathe, but holding it would do nothing. While outside the tower had been warm, if not welcoming, the inside was a cavern of cold that instantly began to sink into her skin. If it was an illusion or real, she had no way to tell. The first step into the room felt natural, though she could keenly feel the cold beneath her feet. The wind pulled at her, negating any chance or choice of turning back, and she found herself all but running towards the flight of stairs that curled up, and up.  
  
The steps flew by beneath her feet, her weariness forgotten as the air simply pulled her, as though it worried she would collapse upon the flight and never get back up. When she slowed, it pulled harder and harder, her hair coming free of the binds as her bow was snatched away and pulled up higher, ever higher. Her shouts, pleas as if the tower would understand her, were lost beneath the wail of the winds. So she continued, faster and faster, until the moment she was spit out upon the final floor came and she stumbled, the supporting urgency of the wind gone. If she had felt like it was going to rob her of her breath before, now she was not certain there was any air at all.  
  
The top of the tower had been long lost to the elements of time, but the good weather had allowed ivy and other creeping plants to grow over the roof and into the room itself, curling near protectively around an altar of pale blue stone holding an enormous object that seemed to be made of air and glass. Stepping closer, just near enough to see for sure, she realized that was exactly what it was; an egg of water so pure that it seemed as if to be nothing more than glass, with a small form within just cloudy enough to be discerned.  
  
But it wasn't the egg she was looking at, but what lay just beyond it, curled atop the already protective vines and flowers. Eyes like mercury watched from a form that seemed ever changing, twisting here and there though she knew it lay in quiet repose. While the hairs on her neck rose at the sight of what was nothing less than her greatest fear and trauma made living, the wind prong itself made a simple move, as if stepping from it's reptilian body into something else, and Chilanu shook her head, words lost in her throat.  
  
In life, Ulaine had been perfection among her people. Strong of body, with wit and charm to match what was nothing short of beautiful. Her mastery of the arts of their people earned her the praise of those lucky enough to view her demonstrations, while the other races revered her for her ferocity in battle. While none had mourned her as Ageron and Chilanu had, her death had spurred ceremonies of grief from one edge of the land to the other, with even enemies laying down arms for a day to engage in their own respects for her amidst wars.  
  
“Of all those you could have taken the shape of, you do the one that would hurt the most.” Chilanu dropped to her knees, hands loose at her side while her head tilted up to hold the off-setting silver gaze of the prong.   
  
“All others are alive, child of the skies. There are none of the Nephosyne who can take the shape of those who live, and there are none who cherish the thought of taking the form of those who sleep peacefully among the Lattice. To speak together, I must use her form. It is one more mark upon your soul that I inflict, and one more that I will beg forgiveness for until the end of my days.” The prong spoke gently, her voice like a breeze on Chilanu's ears, her sorrow laid bare as she dropped to her knees to match Chilanu's own posture.  
  
“You know why I am here.” To meet the silver eyes became too much, but too look at Ulaine's form, built of pale blue and white, the color of clouds on a summer day, was almost too much as well. “There is no need to speak, only for things to go as they must go.”  
  
“Yes,” the woman seemed to pause and chew on her own thoughts, the ones finally spoken clearly carefully chosen. “But I would counsel you against the wish that lingers in your heart, lest it hurt another of your kin. You have been betrayed by selfishness before, the delivery of a punishment that I am afraid wounded two when it should have only wounded one. I do not wish for the line to continue through your family, as there are few I could seek payment from.”  
  
“Betrayed? I can think of no selfishness that has ever betrayed me, no pain that has ever hurt more than when your kin took the one whose shape you have stolen.” She could not help the bitterness that bubbled forth, but the prong did not react violently, as she so wished it would. Instead, it was quiet for a long time, finally looking to the egg behind it.  
  
“So many years have passed. My mother was young, impetuous and eager to be free of the tower. Eager to put me on my path... but then I lingered.” The prong stood, reaching out to ghost fingers over the shell of the egg, watching it ripple like a lake's surface beneath her touch. “But I am older than she, and not so brazen with my powers. I cannot bear to make another suffer as you have. I cannot place that burden on my child.” She moved, and Chilanu felt nothing more than a breeze as Ulaine's form flurried around her, lifting her to stand. “It would be easy. My own skills, my own Lattice-blessed magic would make you male with ease, with no hurt to your mind at all. I could do it.”  
  
“Then do it. If you know my wish, you know that is all I want of you. All that I have worked for to get here is held in that wish.” Chilanu turned her head in time to catch another sorrowful glance, and then the prong was beside the egg again, staring like a mother watching a sick child behind a wall of glass. “You don't wish to do it.”  
  
“No.” Her sorrow was palpable, and Chilanu knew the tears that appeared on the pristine cheeks were as real as the surprise of the woman who shed them. “It is a selfish wish made to heal a selfish wish. Rankle not, I do not mean to imply that you are selfish yourself. Merely that you seek to change what is natural for the betterment of your own life. Thus, selfish. I could make you male, but you would gain nothing but a new form. You, sky-child, are exactly what you are meant to be.”  
  
“You can't do it.” Her frustration rising, Chilanu felt it break over the effort it had taken to get there only to be given riddles. “You want me to ask for something else. New shoes, perhaps? A better weapon?”  
  
“No, no.” Gently, like a mother calming a child, the prong sought to abate the anger welling up inside the Hylios woman. “I took this form not only so that we could speak, but so that you would listen. Give me your ear, child of the skies, and hear what I have to say. If your wish remains the same after I have said what I feel I must say, then I will grant it without another word, and we will witness, together, the birth of a new Nephosyne.” As Chilanu gave a slight nod in agreement, the woman nodded and spoke.  
  
“The Nephosyne are guardians and wardens, special and revered for our abilities. We are wish granters, and so that none attempt to hold us captive to have a wish granted one after another, we are given only one, and that one is tied to the birth of a new Nephosyne. Once the child is born, the mother imparts all knowledge in the growing years, but her magic wanes as the child grows. One wish, one child, and that is all that we give. We are rare, because of this.  
  
“So we came here, to this tower. Eons ago, the first wish was granted after a mighty war. It ended the war, but the damage has yet to be healed. That damage is...” The prong quieted for a moment. “It will be healed one day, one day soon. You may see that day, but that is not important now. The years pass, the wishes are granted, but the Nephosyne begin to develop a conscience. In the old days, it mattered little if the wish was good or bad, benevolent or self-serving. But as time passed and more were selfish, it was decided by one that they would use the little magic remaining after their child was born to curse the one who made the wish.  
  
“It was her hope that, should the person realize their selfishness had been the cause for their curse, the stories would spur others away from making such poor choices. It worked. It was more rumor than anything, but rumors have a power all their own. An important power, if nothing else. It worked... until one woman, a child of the skies like yourself, made her way through the endless riddles and puzzles we have laid out on this island and ascended the tower, coming face to face with her greatest fear.  
  
“My mother knew what this woman wanted, and knew it was a selfish desire. She warned her, going so far as to plead for her not to make that wish, but the woman was set on it. She wished for power that would allow her to avoid the wars and death, she wanted something that someone else possessed. She envied, and coveted what another woman had... and in the span of only a few words, she had it all and the other woman had nothing. Her life splintered, and though she fought for it to not happen, she was replaced the moment the woman made it back to her ship.  
  
“Imagine, child... being married to a man only to have him embrace your sister intimately, without warning. A love that some said would span generations, in pieces for no reason. Carrying a child of that man while he bestows your rightful place on a younger sibling weak of mind and body. This woman made a wish, and gained everything another had. The scorned left, her once-husband never knowing, never understanding the rift that had come between them. No matter how he struggled deep in his mind, the magic was set.  
  
“My mother saw this pain and took pity on the one who had been scorned. She found great luck and wealth, but never loved again. This incensed my mother, and it was on the same day that the scorned died that the usurper had another child. A daughter, who she relished as she knew that the death of her sister would make this child so very special. She planned everything on this child, her pride and joy. It had been envy and wrath that had given her the ability to make that child, and it would be pride that summoned my mother to the child's bed that day.  
  
“While mother and father lay entwined in the next room, my mother picked up the child and sang her a song. A song that she hoped would be soothing and gentle. The song of a Nephosyne, a blessed sound that so few hear. The child would be blessed; with the last of her magic running through her veins, my mother saw great things for the child despite what she was going to do. As the child slept, rocked to sleep in the arms of clouds, my mother laid the punishment upon the child, weeping as she did so.”  
  
The prong paused, looking to Chilanu, who sat with rapt attention despite her annoyance as the tale had started. There was something like dread in her eyes, in her stomach, twisted up like a knot that had gathered ice and refused to move, making her feel sick. As comprehension dawned hot and fierce, she felt the cool hands of the woman on her cheeks, wiping away tears as she knelt opposite Chilanu.   
  
“As the usurper had prized her daughter so, so it was that cursing the child was the only way. The woman had known that she could avoid the wars and death if she wed the King, and cared not that her sister was already Queen. If she bore children for that King, and they brought great fame, she could exist off of that and be known as the mother of champions. Good stock, for other kingdoms. So her most cherished, the one she bore to spite her sister, was the one who bore the mark of her secret shame.  
  
“And her shame has wounded you so much, precious child.” She watched Chilanu shake her head, soft sobs making the woman's frame shudder. “I could make you male as you wish, but my mother's curse is permanent. Even male, you would not sire a child.”  
  
“Then I am cursed to be useless to my family, cursed to never feel what it is like to be one of those who is proper and good?” Chilanu leaned against the cloud-form of Ulaine, and felt as if she might never gather the pieces of her breaking heart. “Even my father has grown to hate me because of this.”  
  
“Your father? No, child.” Cool fingers tilted her face up, and she met the gently smiling face with confusion in her own. “My mother made very sure the essence of your mother's sister would rise strong in you. With every year you aged, you were a reminder of who he had lost. He loves you deeply and truly, though he does not understand why. Magic can break chains, it can muddle the mind and wound the heart, and make one forget something so strong... but magic fades. No magic is permanent on a long scale save for very few types beyond even our abilities.  
  
“Your mother has spoken poison into a confused mind, made him see fault where there is none. He needs only see truth, needs only have the last clouds swept aside, and all will be well again. You need no magic for that. I've given you all that you need, to rise up not only as a champion of your people, but as the blessed child that you are. Anduilair would gladly call you her daughter, not the child of her sister. Not the child of a usurper.  
  
“I can see things, child of the skies. What I see, what every Nephosyne will see, is exactly the same. You will stand up, because you are no weak woman. You will do what is good, for you have tasted bad and found it lacking. You will be fair, and true, and right. When your people call for a leader, you will lead with a love beside you that will burn for years and years to come... and you will be a mother. Not to a child of your body, but to a child of your blood no less. You will yearn for nothing, sky-child. I beg you... do not make me taint that.”  
  
“No.” Chilanu's conviction startled even her, years worth of pain and anger backing every word and sealing it into something that she knew she would never take back. “If you hadn't told me everything, perhaps I would hold to that wish no matter how selfish it is. Not now. I refuse to live beneath that shadow any longer.” After a few moments pause, she looked to the prong and grinned. “It's time to shake it up a little, I think.”  
  


-

  
“It's been too long.” Elenie waved off the servant, huffing and puffing her way over the deck of the ship. At the railing, far used to her worry and endless walking, Theon and Lorcan traded a look between one another and then shared a glance towards the cloud bank that hid the island from view. Several days had passed, and while there were those who had heard of the deaths already, Elenie had acted as though she was sure her daughters had passed as well, and no one wanted to tell her. They watched the pregnant woman waddle off, Jassine following after to leave both men with only their thoughts between them.  
  
“I just want them both back home. Two daughters, a pair of children on the way.” Lorcan chuckled, pulling at a lock of silver that had appeared only recently. “I'm getting old, Theon. More sentimental now than I've ever been about anything, and I'm not sure I'm really enjoying it.”  
  
“Miss the wild days?” Theon smirked, knitting his fingers atop his head.  
  
“The wild days ended when I met your mother. She was a spit fire, Theon. You'd tell her to shut up, and she'd tell you where to cram it. Everything a man could want, she was it. Never fallen so damned hard in my life. I look at Katja and I see a little Ellie. There's some of me in there, but damn me if she's not a duplicate of her mother.”   
  
“I want her.” At Lorcan's quirked brow, Theon rubbed the back of his neck and gave a guilty grin. “Chilanu, not Katja. I want her as mine, same as you have Ellie for yours.” His mirth turned to a frown. “Would that be looked at unkindly? We're supposedly kin, now. Would it be poor, to take her as mine?”  
  
“You're a sorry liar if you think I don't already know you've taken her.” The older man clapped his son on the shoulder, swaying him a bit. “I think that the lack of blood shared between you makes your desires fair, regardless of what we call her. If she marries you, she's still our daughter and Katja's sister. You do plan on that much, no?”  
  
“Yes. I know it has been quick, and rushed... but there's something there, Lorcan. We're two peas in a pod, wounded at our cores. I cannot sire, she cannot carry. No one else would have us, but we could have one another. But...” He frowned again, searching for the words. “There's a scent, Lorc. Not on Chilanu, but near her. On Katja. I know the scent, I've smelled it countless numbers of times back in town.”  
  
“Yes,” Lorcan loosed the word with an inhuman growl, his normally blue eyes an animalistic yellow, “I'm well aware of it, myself.”  
  
“Could we simply be smelling another, perhaps Elenie herself?”  
  
Theon's question barely pulled the grunt from Lorcan before the ship heaved. Shouts went up around the deck as shiphands scurried to secure luggage and animals. Katja's copper-feathered griffon screeched from above, leaving her perch to drop heavily to the deck, her body serving to stop Elenie's topple as the airship pitched once more then held.  
  
“The hell was that?”  
  
“The island!” Ageron's stride was quick and sure, and he barked out instructions that the crew took to with abandon. Offering a helping hand to Elenie, he coaxed her to Lorcan before pointing out to where the clouds now stirred, creating a mighty whirlpool that slowly destroyed the cloud cover, sucking it into what looked like the top of a white tower. “It's over. They can come home.” He managed the flicker of a smile before something in the whirlpool made him frown.  
  
Others began to watch. The circling fleet of ships went from having only crew and worried families to holding nearly the entire force on their decks, the rising noise escalating as a wispy, ghostly form rose from the tower and sank lower, clearing more of the sky to reveal another island floating, not in the sky as the last had been, but in the midst of a sea so clear that the reefs hundreds of feet below the surface could still be seen.   
  
Ageron barked another command, and those not used to sailing on the airships clung to the railing despite the smooth transition the ship made. Following his lead, other ships sank lower, some meeting the sea before their own, but all near the beach where the familiar shapes of the competitors could be seen, waiting. Elenie wept, pulling herself over the railing to hit water, paddling and soon stumbling towards the approaching figure of her daughter.  
  
Without thought, Theon and Lorcan followed, meeting Elenie and Katja's laughing embrace with one of their own. The group laughed and cried, unaware of the others filtering onto the beach, some in mourning for the carefully laid out corpses that had appeared, others speaking frantically with those who had survived. A cluster of Harpies nearby caught Katja's attention, and she pulled herself from the pile to approach them.  
  
They had no way of knowing what was said, though it was clear that it took a few moments for them to find one who could understand her. They reacted less to her words than they did to an object she pulled from her battered satchel, the group parting to reveal a young, too-skinny Harpy, supported more by another Harpy than his own self. The look in his eyes was one of mourning, and of a hope so heart-wrenching that Elenie had to fight the desire to gather him into her own arms.   
  
The demeanor of the group changed; Summer Wing was suddenly a war hero to be revered and given the best of ceremony, and the gathering worked to carefully wrap her body and carry it back to the ship they had arrived in. The boy was the last to move, his hands cupped around the feather while Katja spoke low and quiet to him, allowing her weight to be the rock he supported himself with in his grief. When he at last moved back to his flock, it was without support and with pride.  
  
“I am starving.” Chilanu had crept up on them while they had been watching Katja, and her cheeky grin was so familiar to the family that their fright quickly dissolved into mirth. “If I don't get something delicious into me, I think I might just fall over and die.” She pressed a kiss to Elenie's temple, and allowed herself to be gathered into a hug by both Theon and Lorcan before slipping from the both of them. “Gather Katja. This will be a night to remember.”  
  
“Lanu.” Ageron silenced himself as she lifted a finger to her lips, joining her in watching the family gather their daughter and sister up and sweeping her back to the boats. When she looked at him again, he was struck by the age that seemed to have manifested in the steady gaze. “Who...”  
  
“Won? I did.” She took a breath, dropping her eyes to look for his hand, taking it in her own. “I'm not staying, Ageron. When we all go back to our places, I am going to go with Katja and her family. My family. No more shadows, no more debasing myself for the hope of something that doesn't exist. After this night, I am a Hoax. Come what may, no matter what happens tonight, that is where I stand.” Her smile was sad, and she squeezed his hand once before letting go, leaving parting words for him as she moved back into the crowd. “It's time for you to make your choice, too.”  
  


-

  
The sun had long set by the time the Niquani appeared. They were barely noticed at first, mere women swimming to shore to touch sand just outside of the light of torches and bonfires lit along the beach. They were silent, little more than echoes of crashing waves with all of the grace of the tides. There were seven of them, each as beautiful as the last. Each wore their hair long, the shades of blues and greens ranging from the pale color of the shallows to the deepest hues of the darkest depths. Their garments seemed to be both inspired and made from the fruits of the sea, though none would be considered decent in proper company.   
  
Strings of pearls and beads of coral were draped between heavy breasts and through lengthy hair that framed bodies that most would kill for. Each woman wore only one item of clothing; a sheer robe made of iridescent fabric that caught the light of the bonfires and turned it into scattered color along the length of fabric, lighting white and pale blues with fiery orange and reds. The robes were loose and untied, any shred of decency allowed only by the long hair that each bore, ranging from the waist on the youngest, clear to the ankles on the eldest woman most richly decorated.  
  
When they moved, they seemed to be nothing more than the tide sweeping around rocks. It seemed as though not a single person moved, and yet they slipped effortlessly through the crowd to the pavilion that had been set up, where those who had survived feasted with the winner of the grueling competition and her ethereally beautiful companion. The Nephosyne was the only one who made a move at the beginning, fading from her seat to appear before the table in a moment of wind, her hands held out to the eldest of the women who approached. Like sisters, they embraced and pulled apart, speaking quietly in voices that were gentle and yet primal, elemental.  
  
“It's time.” Chilanu muttered it just loud enough for Katja to hear, leaving the half-elf looking at her sister in confusion, a hand rubbing the small of her back. “I hope you're better at this than I am.” The Hylios woman stood at a nod from the Nephosyne, lifting her voice loud enough that all were sure to hear it. “I would ask that those who represent the races come forward, for tonight we have much to speak of.  
  
“You know me as Chilanu, daughter of the Goldleaf family, the youngest of the single-born children that my esteemed father and mother have brought into this world. Past this night, I will release the mantle of that name, and become a Hoax. I will bear new family, and while my blood will always run in the Goldleaf vein, I have come to realize that there is more than just blood that makes a family. There is strength, and trust. There is hope, and a wild amount of fear.” Her hand touched on Katja's shoulder, and they shared a smile as she continued.  
  
“In war, we create bonds such as these. While we live in a time of peace, I have great fear that we will not have such for too much longer. Beside me,” she helped Katja to her feet, noting the flinch and her pale skin with a passing glance, “is Katja. She is a representative of her people, a people so varied that I have seen several of their kind and know them only as where they have come from. She came to us months ago with a plea, begging for help for a people she only knew were alive by absolute chance. She came here young and afraid, but she has shown bravery and cunning more fierce than any warrior I know.  
  
“I asked for this challenge so that I might change something of myself. So that I might become what I thought I should have been all along. I realized, through the kindness of one, that there are some things that are better off unchanged. It is my wish that you would spare a few moments of your time to listen to the plea that I have heard, and that I have come to believe. Listen, and take what you learn here back with you. Spread it to those who have the loudest voices, and make your choices. That is all I ask.” Glancing just once to Katja, Chilanu sat, leaving the girl with the eyes of all those present on her.  
  
“It's funny.” Katja's voice was quiet, but heard by the Ayera who began to translate for the various races. “I was sent to the Hylios in hope of recruiting them to what is no longer simply our cause, but the cause of all those on this world. I've struggled so hard to get just one to see, that I seem to have lost all the words that would inspire those here to follow me. To trust me. I realize now, or perhaps I realized a while ago, that I don't have the words to make anyone feel inspired, or to make anyone trust me. I can only hope that I find the words that will help you understand my fear.  
  
“While I look young, I am over fifty years of age. I was born near the tail-end of what has become the most devastating war of our entire world. I was raised by only one, who took all of her time in teaching me how to survive. Our world was like this one, once. Beautiful, and vibrant. I grew up on stories of a whole other world that was connected, but I've never seen it. It died a long time ago. My world... the skies were blue, the oceans so clear you could see fish swimming a hundred feet away. There was food for everyone, and there were heroes. Legends. Kings and Queens, nobility and adventure.” She found herself walking away from the table, stepping down into the group.  
  
“I grew up on tales of this world, but I never knew it. By the time I was old enough to remember, the air was thick. The scent of death lingered for days after a kill, as if it wanted you to know that your own doom was only seconds away. The shadows were alive, and if you were not careful, they could convince you to kill yourself or go mad and harm others. The world my mother and father grew up in no longer existed for me... and it is still dying.” Her fingers knit together, and she chewed her lip before looking to her mother for support.  
  
“We know them as the Burning Legion. They are creatures of incredible power, twisted perversely into these beasts that crave, even lust after, pain and chaos. Where they go, entire worlds burn. If you are a coward, they will beguile you and bring you into their world, forever a prisoner made to kill all those you loved. If you are brave, you just might live through a fight, pitted one against another. But we did not deal with just one. We dealt with thousands of years of preparation, thousands of years worth of plans and careful cultivation of the best. We fought hard, but we are not all strong. Those weak of heart and mind were later slain, turned against us as fodder for the amusement of them, the Legion's demons.” Her ears twitched as she heard the word echoed around her, a pit of dread forming as she realized that they had no word for her people's horror.  
  
Around her, the word seemed to click and whistle over the lips of all who were present, while Katja looked on helplessly. How was she to make them understand the weight of that word, when it did not seem to exist in any other language? How was she to make them see, when she could not think of a comparison? As the rising tide of voices pushed against her, she felt something small and spherical push into her palm. Looking down, she saw only a pearl the size of a plum glowing softly in her hand. Elenie smiled faintly, but Katja knew that there was no joy in the gesture. Instead, her mother was tight-lipped with what she could only assume was fear.  
  
“The Eldest wishes to see what is in your hand.” A sweet-faced Ayera gestured to Katja's hand in the mayhem, and she offered out the pearl. Taking it, the blonde offered it to the Niquani woman, who cradled it in her delicate hands before whispering a word. In an instant, where there had once been uncertain mumbling, there were now screams and cries of alarm as the figures of demons too familiar to four of those present rose above the crowd. Katja backed into her mother, her own fear swallowing her words as a massive Nathrezim clawed, harmlessly, through the crowd. While fear poisoned the air, Katja found her voice, and was soon joined by the Ayera.  
  
“These.” The last horrible days of Dalaran played out around her, white towers falling while mages and arcanists were torn limb from limb and dropped to vanish like ghosts in the crowd. “These are what destroyed our world, and what are coming to finish the few of us that still survive. They ripped down cities, burned towns, destroyed entire areas just to watch us stagger and fall. They wanted us to beg, but we fought. We fought, and we fought... and we died. In the end, they got our world and we managed to come here. Crippled, broken, but we were at least alive. We're alive, and so we know they will chase. They chased some of our people for twenty-five thousand years, and they will chase us, too. And this world... this beautiful, lush world? It will fall, too.”  
  
The images faded, clasped tightly in the hand of the Eldest. Katja's closeness to the beautiful woman was the only reason she saw the tears, clear as the very ocean on the woman's skin. As the pearl was handed back to Elenie and tucked safely away, the rumble of conversation became silence.  
  
“I have nothing else. We can't go back to what was our home, and now we're standing here, knowing that when they come again that it will be the end of us... and the beginning of the end for all of you. There is no place you can hide, no place you can run that will be far enough away. Your kingdoms in the sky are no safer than those beneath the water. What they touch breaks and shatters. Those you love now could be the ones you are forced to kill tomorrow. We brought this horror to you, and I cannot begin to fathom how we could make it up to any of you.  
  
“But I know that it would be unfair and unkind to allow you and your people to walk blindly into this. As much as we know we need the help, we want to help, as well. We believe that we can help, in our own way.” Chewing her words, she sighed softly, and shook her head. “We can't force anyone to fight. We won't force anyone. But I ask that you make sure those who need to know are aware of what must be known. My one voice could not do much, but all of our voices? It could help. It could be the turning point. I don't want this world to burn.” Katja shrugged, looking helplessly to those gathered around.  
  
As her words ended and those who attended became aware that she had no more to say, talking began. It wasn't hard to find those who were dubious, and those who were eager. Harpies clicked and whistled to one another in question and argument, while the few Xalv alternated between rattling their scales and baring fangs as long as her own arms. Only two seemed less interested in discussing rather than listening; the Topani ambassadors watched with guarded amusement, while the Niquani women remained silent, masks of sadness evident on their lovely faces.  
  
“You'll leave them thinking, which is all you could hope for.” Chilanu's voice made her jump, and she hid a twinge of pain in her back behind a shy grin. “I'm sorry I allowed you no time to prepare. You did well, all things considered. I don't think you were believed until the stone was brought to life by Naquira.” Chilanu motioned to the Eldest, who now stood with her arms around the youngest of her group, no doubt consoling her in her fear. “I didn't wholly believe, myself. Those things are...”  
  
“Terrifying, and I'm not the one who had to live through that. The fallout? Yes, I was there for that. Raised in it, struggling to find roots in the taint they left, but I wasn't there to watch the cities fall. My parents were. Compared to their hell, I've known nothing but peace.” Another twinge hit, stronger and yet still unfamiliar, and Katja moved to excuse herself. “It's been a long last few weeks, Lanu. Now that I've done what I have, I feel like I could sleep for centuries.”  
  
“Rest sounds good,” Chilanu conceded, gesturing out over the crowd. “I'll have to catch my own sleep later. But if you wish to vanish, I can make sure that you aren't bothered.” The Hylios woman traded a smile with Katja's own thankful one, and watched the half-elf head for the smaller craft that would take her to the larger airships bobbing out on the open ocean. It did not take her long to lose Katja's outline, and then the party consumed her.  
  


-

  
Sleep had been her aim, but it could not be found no matter how hard she tried. The cabin Chilanu had offered for her use when on the massive airship felt to warm no matter how many windows she had thrown open. The soft bed, usually so easy to fall asleep upon, felt as though it sought to swallow her up instead of cradle her. Worse still was the pain, one that made her feel as though she needed to both eat and avoid eating for fear whatever went down would come back up again. She lay for hours at first, her eyes closed to fool those who opened her door to check on her.  
  
When it had become quiet again and those who remained awake were only deckhands who would ask no questions, she slipped from her bed and pulled a long shirt over her, and found that the need to walk had claimed her. Surely, she thought to herself as she pushed open the door and closed it behind her, a walk would help settle her stomach and aid in sleeping. So she walked, staying to shadows and out of sight of lovers entwined on the deck, and let her mind roam free.  
  
It didn't surprise her when she found the double doors to Ageron's cabin in front of her, her palm out against the patterned glass set into the wood. She didn't remember crossing the plank that connected Ageron's ship to his sibling's own, nor could she understand the draw that the thought of him had become. Without much thought, she pushed the door and let it open just enough for her to slip through, allowing the soft click of it's closing to be the only herald of her arrival.   
  
He watched her, the light of the candles lit around the room outlining hard muscle uncovered and bare to the warmth of the room. He made no move towards her, his body tensed when she circled around the heavy desk and came to him. He moved only to set aside the book he had been ready, a soft sound of both pleasure and surprise leaving barely parted lips as she took the book and set it on the floor, replacing it with her own body over his own, her thighs clasped tight against his hips.   
  
Only when she bent to press her lips against his own did he move, winding a rough hand into her hair while the other sought out flesh to grab and knead, moving from the top of her thigh to her hip and around to her rear, pulling her tight against him as he sat up and broke their kiss, leaving her panting for breath. He wasted no time in finding purchase elsewhere, lips trailing down her jaw to her neck and then her collar, aided by deft fingers that pulled flimsy fabric out of the way so he could better make her purr.  
  
Sense was long replaced by a hunger that both only just acknowledged as Katja's body lifted enough to help him coax his length into place, whispered murmurs barely holding words beyond grunts of both pain and pleasure when he dragged her hips down, slowly impaling her upon him, holding her trembling body as still as he could while she became accustomed to him.  
  
What should have been gentle, what should have taken hours, was over in minutes. Their rough rutting left them both breathless, Katja's body curled against his own while he breathed reassurances to her that seemed to be a considerable bit for himself as well. It had not been perfect, it had not been what either one of them had wanted, but they were willing to accept it for what it was. At least, that's how it seemed until he murmured something, and Katja stiffened, pulling away to look at him with her brows furrowed.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“I said,” he groaned with her as he moved her from his lap, setting her tensed body down on the bed while he stood and moved to a shelf, dragging down two cups and a bottle of something dark, “that you have no idea how long I wished to have you like that again.”  
  
A look at her revealed his err, her bright eyes suddenly clouded with confusion. His guilt showed plainly, and he turned away to avoid having to look at her again when she stood.  
  
“I've never done this before. Not with you.” Katja's voice raised as something like fear entered it, and she stepped around him quickly, searching his face. “Not with anyone. I would know.” She laughed, but the sound was hollow and expectant, as if she wished he would laugh with her. When he only refused to meet her eyes, she felt sickness and rage mingle.“I would... what did you do to me?”  
  
“Katja, you have to understand...”   
  
“Oh, Light help me...” The bed creaked as she sat down again, hard.  
  
“It's alright. If anything had come of it, you'd be showing by now. An easily forgotten mistake...”  
  
“A  _mistake_? Is that what you consider something so precious?” She stood again, hands fisted in her hair. “What happened just moments ago? That was a mistake. Why don't I remember anything? Why don't I remember us being together like this?”  
  
“You were asleep.” He was loathe to say the words, nearly flinching beneath the scorn that radiated from her. “It was a misunderstanding. It wasn't supposed to go as far as it did. We thought -...”  
  
“We? Was I violated by more than one?”  
  
“It wasn't violation,” his hands lifted to defend himself as she flew at him, an unearthly screech leaving her lips. “Lanu walked in on me. She surprised me, and I released. We've been watching you to make sure -...”  
  
“Let me go!” Katja fought his grip, soon twisting her wrists out of his hands so fiercely that the sudden lack of his support sent her spiraling back. To save herself, she twisted, crying out in pain as the corner of the heavy desk hit her hard in the stomach. Her voice was low, choked with anguish of of both physical and mental varieties while she clutched the desk. “Both of you betrayed me. I could understand you, but Lanu...”  
  
When he moved towards her, she stumbled away, holding her stomach. Every step was pain, but there was nothing more damaging to him than the raw hate in her eyes when she made it to the door.  
  
“Never again. Never.”  
  
She was gone.  
  


-

  
No one asked twice when Katja asked for them to leave for the Academy. When she asked for privacy, telling her mother and father that she just didn't feel well and had no desire to see Elenie catch what she might have, they accepted her reasons and told others that the girl was just becoming used to the method of transportation. No one checked in on her, not after she chased Lanu from the room with heated words that clearly stung the silver-haired woman.  
  
It was three days into the trip before Elenie found herself too curious, and peered into the room. Her scream brought others running, Lorcan carefully pulling his wife away from Katja's bleeding, near-lifeless body as Theron attempted to restrain Chilanu from rushing in. Only one was allowed into the room, Jassine quickly explaining the dire circumstance; Katja was dying, and they had no way to stop the bleeding.  
  
It was Chilanu who broke first, her grief deeper than even Elenie's. Her confession, her private fear that Katja had come to harm while carrying children she had no idea existed, enraged Lorcan. In moments, the normally calm man was little more than a black-furred beast with his jaws clamped tight on the shoulder of the silver-haired woman while his claw sought to strangle the life from her. No one saw the blade until it was a sliver of light against the darkness of Lorcan's pelt, Elenie's firm grasp keeping pressure to bring her husband back from the edge.  
  
“We have lost one, Lorcan. I cannot bear to lose another.”  
  
The beast retreated, but not enough to become man again. Leaving Chilanu bleeding from a final swipe of his claws over her cheek, he padded back to the door of his blood-daughter and crouched, watching as Theon and Elenie worked to help Chilanu away from the threat that was her adopted father. Theon shared a glance with him, a silent request that Lorcan keep a nose out, and pray that death had not found one of their own.  
  
He could hear nothing but Jassine's voice coaxing a dying girl to stay awake, to hold her hand, to grip and squeeze, and finally... to rest. Chilanu's blood stained his tongue and dripped darkly from his claws, adding to the slowly growing trickle of blood that crept from beneath the door, pooling around his feet. He stayed there for hours, with Katja's scent assaulting his senses, until the smell of death mingled with the only noise heard for all those hours.  
  
The single hungry wail of a newborn.  
  
 ****

_**Part Two: End** _

 


End file.
